RESEARCH STUDY Today s Talent Flight Risk: Why Your Employees Are Taking Off and What HR Can Do About It Employee Development Survey September 2015
Imagine walking into your workplace and seeing one out of three employees gone. Here s another scary thought: based on a new study, this nightmare could become reality and soon. According to the new Saba Employee Development Survey (Sept. 2015), nearly one-third (32%) of surveyed employees said they were likely or very likely to look for new jobs in the next six months. And of the 2,000 people surveyed, 42% cited lack of career development as their top complaint. This vibe is nothing new. When Saba asked employees the same question in January 2015, the same percentage (32%) admitted they were actively seeking another job. That means a large chunk of your employees are still frustrated and would gladly jump ship given the right opportunity. Clearly, today s employees want more career development and opportunities. And today s employers want to keep their talent in place. So where s the disconnect? Workforce Exodus: Could Communication Be Partly to Blame? The Saba study revealed another shocking finding a large gap between what employees want and what HR leaders think they re providing. More than 60% of HR leaders think they are communicating well about an individual s career advancement paths, while only 36% of employees agreed. The problem isn t that companies are failing to give employees what they want; the real problem is that HR is failing to communicate about the career development options available to them. Perhaps the breakdown lies in another study finding inadequate processes could play a role in discovering high potentials and future leaders within their workforce. Nearly 70% of HR respondents said they were using either no technology (28%) or ineffective methods like spreadsheets (41%) to help them identify high potential employees. 2
Bridging this gap is paramount and could be achieved by focusing on a few things. Your HR team could: Employ proactive, push communications to inform employees about career paths and open jobs and opportunities within your company. Equip managers to converse with employees. Give them coaching on coaching, plus more awareness of coaching programs available to them. Explore technology designed to build talent pools, develop succession plans and identify leaders within. Review your programs and make sure they include the latest strategies. What Do You Want to Know About Your Employees? Just Ask. What HR wants to know about their employees: 50% What motivates them 47% Their personal goals and values Ironically, employees would be happy to share this information if employers would only ask. Surprisingly, many haven t (but should). A great place to start is by simply asking employees what motivates them. You could do this in an anonymous survey, start a discussion in your internal collaboration tool, or encourage managers to have this conversation with their direct reports as part of a coaching and development program. A one-on-one conversation is also the best way to discover an employee s personal goals and values. Sometimes all it takes is a manager who is truly interested to get employees to open up. Many HR departments make this mistake: they assume managers are already having these types of conversations with their employees. And some of are. But these can be tricky conversations, and most managers would welcome some help in this area. Need help getting started with coaching? Download our Coaching Playbook Get Results Faster Automate Since nearly one third of employees already have their eye on the door, today s HR teams don t have time to waste in addressing their needs. With career development and succession planning ranked as important factors, HR teams need to get serious or get left behind. In all of these cases, today s purpose-built technology tools can help. For example, if managers use performance management software to conduct employee reviews, HR teams could have easy access to the information they desperately want. Purpose-built software can also allow companies to gather similar information through crowd sourcing, taking some of the burden off managers. And some new technology can even predict flight risk without any manual data entry from managers. Investing in some key software tools could make a huge difference. 3
The survey revealed several weak spots in companies data-collection processes: 50% of HR leaders want to know what motivates employees, but many have failed to ask (or don t have an effective process in place). 40% of survey respondents rely on performance review ratings from managers to identify the highest-impact players and future leaders in the organization. Given that a recent Gallup poll shows that only 35% of managers are engaged, this puts the collection of critical information at risk. 41% of survey responders are still using spreadsheets to discover high-potential employees/future leaders within their workforce. While this method can work for a few hundred employees, it has serious limitations when managing thousands. 31% of companies said they wanted their managers assessment of the impact of each employee. Since this information is normally gathered during the performance management process, it s either not being collected or being disseminated effectively. 28% said they wanted up-to-date risk assessments of losing high-potential employees and talent in critical roles. Close-Up on Employee Motivations What are the things that are making the grass look greener at other companies? The survey revealed some good insights. Not surprisingly, better pay is the number one reason an employee would leave, but HR can t always control budget decisions. What they can address, however, are several other high-ranking factors, such as better career options (41%), better benefits (37%), better work flexibility (28%), and a better culture/better leadership (21%). Bottom line: do what you can to address employees top desires. Why I Would Go Better salary... 73% Better career options... 41% Better benefits... 37% Better work flexibility... 28% Better culture/leadership...21% Better business growth/stability...20% Better manager...15% Better alignment of purpose...12% 4
On the flip side, many HR teams are doing a lot of things right to keep their talent in place. Based on the study, employees that choose to stay with their current employers do so because they get flexible work options, competitive benefits and a positive work environment. Bottom line: continue doing those things employees want and appreciate. Why I Stay Flexible work options... 39% Competitive benefits... 33% Competitive compensation... 28% Positive culture/work environment... 24% Great people I can learn from... 23% Clear mission, vision and goals... 16% Regular rewards and recognition for performance... 15% Provides career development for all employees... 14% Communicates a compelling shared purpose... 10% Solicits and leverages input from everyone... 5% While you can t transform your entire corporate culture overnight, making a few key HR decisions in the right places can help turn the tide and may keep your top talent from taking off. Find out more by downloading our free ebook: The Essential Guide to Career Development and Coaching Get the ebook 5
*Methodology The Employee Development Survey was sponsored by Saba Software, a leader in cloud-based intelligent talent management solutions, and WorkplaceTrends.com, a research and advisory membership service for forward-thinking HR professionals. The survey was administered by Research Now in the U.S. and UK during August and September 2015. In the U.S., the company surveyed 700 human resource professionals and 700 employees between the ages of 18 64, and in the UK, the company surveyed 300 human resource professionals and 300 employees between the ages of 18 64. 6
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