retention Archives

Top 5 Reasons Why Employees Leave Their Jobs in 2020

by LizStevens | Jan 29, 2020 | Blog

Top 5 reasons why employees leave their jobs in 2020. It has a lot more to do with professional development than it does compensation.

Opportunities for professional development are vital to job satisfaction and employee retention. Without them, employees will look elsewhere, according to research by CareerAddict.

Their latest report asked employees why they quit their jobs and found that a lack of progression influences their decision most.

CareerAddict’s research is particularly interesting because it found that the top five reasons for quitting a job are the same across all age groups and traditional gender identities.

Top 5 Reasons Why Employees Leave Their Jobs in 2020

CareerAddict found a “steady transgenerational pattern” when it came to factors motivating employees to quit. Across all age groups and across all the gender identities they surveyed, there were only marginal differences between their deciding factors. These are the top five reasons for quitting a job, at any age as a man or as a woman:

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What Do Employees Want From HR?

CareerAddict asked employees to elaborate on what they wanted from HR. After analyzing and coding their responses, these are some of the most common requests:

“Ensure work-life balance.”
“Respect confidentiality.”
“Address harassment.”
“Run development trainings.”
“Communicate policies better.”
“Create employee satisfaction surveys.”
“Offer better benefits.”
“Support progression.”
“Compensate based on merit.”
“Ensure supervisors act ethically.”
“Conduct exit interviews.”
“Offer career guidance.”

CareerAddict advises employers who want to retain top talent should, “Place more emphasis on accommodating their staff’s professional growth. Creating more opportunities for career advancement and recognizing and adequately compensating employees’ efforts are just a few actionable initiatives that can significantly improve employee engagement and retention.”

Offering Child Care Benefits to Employees

by LizStevens | Jan 22, 2020 | Blog

Offering child care benefits to employees. Employers can address work-life balance and aid recruitment and retention efforts with child care benefits for employees.

Both parents are employed in more than 60 percent of American families, yet only 6 percent of companies offer child care benefits, according to research by Clutch.

Another study, by New America’s Better Life Lab and Care.com, found that the average annual cost of full-time center-based child care ($9,589) is more expensive than in-state college tuition ($9,410). (And, both costs are rising smartly above the rate of inflation.)

Employers are expanding family-friendly employee benefits to improve work-life balance as well as bolster retention and recruitment efforts and employer-paid child care benefits are a trend to watch in 2020.

The Rising Cost of Child Care

Research by Freddie Mac found the price of child care, adjusted for inflation, has increased by more than 45 percent over the last 25 years and it impacts a family’s ability to afford a home.

“One of the major challenges, when it comes to affording a home, is the high cost of child care. Our analysis finds that those families paying for child care generally are left with less money for housing. Specifically, we find they, on average, pay about half of the median mortgage payment and nearly eighty percent of the median rent,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist.

The average family spent more than 10 percent of their annual income on child care in 2011. In lower-income families, the cost burden of child care is much higher. Families making less than $1,500 a month with children under the age of 15 spent 40 percent of their income on child care, on average.

Offering Child Care Benefits to Employees

New parent benefits have seen significant growth over the past five years, but child care benefits have failed to keep pace. According to research by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM):

25 percent of employers let employees bring children to work in an emergency
11 percent of employers have a child care referral service
4 percent of employers offer subsidized or nonsubsidized child care centers or programs

As an emerging trend, there isn’t a wealth of data on the ROI of child care benefits, but initial research published in the Journal of Management found companies that introduced child care benefits had lower collective turnover rates for female employees in subsequent years.

In the next few years, we expect to see the number of companies offering child care benefits rise as employers battle for top talent with better benefits.

How Do You Retain Employees?

by LizStevens | Aug 20, 2019 | Blog

How do you retain employees? Forty-three percent of workers will look for a new job in the next year, putting employer focus on retention strategies.

More than 80 percent of employers are concerned about retaining employees — and with good reason. Almost half (43%) plan to look for a new job in the next 12 months, according to research from global staffing firm Robert Half.

“In a tight employment market, workers have more options, and the grass may look greener somewhere else,” said Paul McDonald, senior executive director for Robert Half. “Employers can help prevent turnover by learning what motivates their most valued employees and customizing their retention strategies. While money is an important motivator, benefits or growth opportunities are also strong enticements.”

How Do You Retain Employees Looking for a New Job?

Robert Half asked respondents if there was one thing their employers could do that would convince them to stay at their current jobs. The top answer was what you’d expect: more than 40 percent of workers would stay if their employer offered them more money.

Access to more time off or better benefits would retain 20 percent of employees looking for new jobs. Nineteen percent of workers would be happy to stay at their current job if they were given a promotion. A new boss would retain only 8 percent of employees. Lastly, 10 percent of employees said there was nothing their employer could do to convince them to stay.

What Employee Retention Strategies are Companies Using?

Forty-six percent of employers are increasing communication with employees through town hall meetings and employee engagement surveys in an effort to retain more employees. Just over 40 percent of employers are improving employee recognition programs and providing professional development to improve employee retention.

Enhancing compensation and benefits is the retention strategy 40 percent of employers are using, which makes sense since more than 60 percent of respondents said more money, time off or benefits would keep them at their current job.

Other employers are providing reimbursement for ongoing education, facilitating mentorship programs or working with interim staff to prevent full-time employees from becoming burnt out.

Surprisingly, 7 percent of employers aren’t using any employee retention strategies. If they knew nearly half of their employees would be looking elsewhere within the next year, we bet they’d reconsider.

More on How to Retain Employees

How High is Work-Related Stress and What’s Causing it?

Choosing the Most Important Benefits to Employees in 2020

Is Rehiring a Former Employee a Good Idea?

How to Retain Hourly Employees

2 Simple Strategies to Improve Office Culture

How to Make Traditional Work Better for Freelancers

What Are the Consequences of Too Much Tech?

How Do You Improve Employee Retention?

Choosing the Most Important Benefits to Employees in 2020

by LizStevens | Aug 7, 2019 | Blog

Choosing the most important benefits to employees in 2020. Increase employee benefits participation and engagement with our three-step strategy.

Best Money Moves recently forecast the top 10 employee benefits for 2020 and we’ve developed a simple, three-step strategy to help you identify the benefits your employees want most and formulate a communications plan to increase participation and engagement.

How to Choose the Most Important Benefits to Employees in 2020

Step #1 Audit Your Current Employee Benefits

Conduct an audit of your current employee benefits package. You’ll want to know which benefits are used most frequently and which benefits are underutilized. If there isn’t an annual report for benefits utilization, work with HR to create a process for it going forward. Historical data comes in handy whenever you’re making benefits decisions.

If a benefit is underutilized, it doesn’t necessarily mean that benefit should be scrapped. Nearly half of employees don’t understand all the benefits their organization offers. The next step helps you determine whether it’s a benefit that employees don’t value a benefit that needs to be restrategized.

Step #2 Survey Employees and HR

A short employee survey gives you insight into what benefits are the most important benefits to employees in 2020. Make sure to include questions about benefits that appear to be undervalued and benefits you’re thinking of introducing. Multiple-choice questions quickly determine which benefits are most sought after, and, if you include open-ended questions, they’ll tell you why those benefits matter most.

While you’re at it, survey your human resources team. What questions do they get about benefits? Are there any benefits employees have asked about that the organization doesn’t offer? What do they think about the current benefits engagement process? Is there any way they think benefits communication can be improved? How? Including HR in the planning process gives you a better understanding of how benefits are managed day-to-day and where improvements can be made.

How to Increase Employee Benefits Participation and Engagement

Step #3 Improve Benefits Communication

Employee benefits participation and engagement comes down to one thing: communication. Traditional meetings or emails that give employees large amounts of information are no longer an effective way to educate employees. Shorter, bite-sized benefits information sent over a longer period of time is a better way to improve employee understanding.

“Releasing “bite-sized” bits of information on different benefits every quarter could vastly improve employees’ understanding of benefits selection and enrollment,” said Misty Guinn, director of benefits and wellness at cloud-based benefits platform provider Benefitfocus.

This does mean more work for HR, but the good news is that most of it can be automated with minimal updates once templates are written. Test different methods of communication, like text messaging, phone calls and instant messenger in addition to emails or meetings. Track participation, open and click rates to see which method is the best way to reach your employees.

Employee benefits and perks are the battlegrounds where employers are fighting the war for talent in a tight job market where unemployment hovers at a nearly 50-year low (3.7%). Moreover, employee benefits account for more than 30 percent of total employee compensation. It’s worth developing a better benefits process and improved engagement strategies to make sure your organization offers the most important benefits to employees in 2020.

More on the Most Important Benefits to Employees in 2020:

Top 10 Employee Benefits for 2020

4 Big Employee Benefits Trends for Family Planning

Financial Wellbeing and Its Role in a Complete Employee Wellbeing Program

5 Must-Have Benefits for Millennial Employees

Top 10 Workplace Etiquette Rules for Communication

Hiring Trends to Watch in 2020

How to Support Mental Health at Work

Building Office Culture with Diversity and Inclusion

by LizStevens | Jun 25, 2019 | Blog

Building office culture with diversity and inclusion. Employers are working to improve office culture and research by Deloitte can help them close the gap between values and practices.

A better office culture starts with diversity and inclusion but more than 60 percent of marginalized groups working for companies that focus on those values still feel pressured to “cover” their identities to fit in at work, according to research by Deloitte. Organizational expectations to “cover” lead these employees to perceive a lack of opportunities within the company, which results in their decreased commitment, negatively impacting job satisfaction and retention.

There are four common ways marginalized groups make efforts to conceal their identities in the workplace. Understanding how employees “cover” and how it impacts their relationship with the organizations they work for is essential for employers focused on improving office culture and bolstering diversity and inclusion efforts.

How Employees Cover at Work to Fit into Office Culture

Deloitte explores “covering” at work across the four axes defined by Kenji Yoshino in 2006:

Appearance-based covering involves altering one’s self-representation to blend into mainstream office culture. This can include changing one’s grooming, attire and mannerisms. A black respondent shared, “I went through a period two years ago where I had a bad reaction to the chemical straightener I used in my hair and had to stop. It was so uncomfortable wearing my natural hair to work that I resorted to wearing weaves, which were very costly and did more damage to my hair. However, I felt that the weave was more acceptable than wearing my natural hair. I also hated that when I wore my natural hair it always seems to be the subject of conversation as if that single feature defined who I am as a person.”
Affiliation-based covering happens when employees avoid behaviors commonly associated with their identity to negate stereotypes. A woman respondent shared, “I was coached to not mention family commitments (including daycare pickup, for which I leave half an hour early, but check in remotely at night) in conversations with executive management, because the individual frowns on flexible work arrangements.”
Advocacy-based covering concerns how much employees defend the group they identify with at work. An LGBTQIA+ respondent shared, “I didn’t feel I could protest when the person put in charge of diversity for our group was in fact an extremely vocal homophobe.”
Association-based covering occurs when employees avoid contact with other group members at work. A respondent with cancer shared, “I don’t associate with cancer groups, because I don’t want to draw attention to my medical status, disability, or flexible arrangements. People tend to look at me like I’m dying when they find out I have cancer, they avoid giving me longer term or higher-profile projects. Mostly I think they do this to be nice, because they assume I can’t handle it.”

How to Improve Office Culture with Diversity and Inclusion Efforts

Deloitte acknowledges in their report, “Some forms of covering are absolutely justifiable. To join a group is to surrender some degree of individual expression in the name of common expression,” and quotes a respondent who said their appearance-based covering actually increased their commitment to their workplace.

The issue is then identifying which covering demands are proper or improper, and Deloitte developed the “Uncovering Talent” model to help companies close the gap between values and practices, which involves:

Reflecting on current instances of covering.
Diagnosing the incidence, impact and drivers of covering by gathering qualitative and quantitative data.
Analyzing covering behaviors relative to stated corporate values.
Identifying leadership and cultural solutions.

It is possible for efforts to improve office culture, diversity and inclusion to succeed. Nearly 20 percent of respondents stated that they have “uncovered in a way that has led to success” both for them and for their organization.