There are two recent findings by the DOL that don’t look good for your retention efforts.
No. 1: The number of job openings hit a 14-year high of 5.1 million in February, according to the latest figures from the DOL’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And as you can imagine, more job openings mean more opportunities for talented individuals to find greener pastures elsewhere.
No. 2: The number of employees who’ve voluntarily quit their jobs reached a seven-year high of 2.8 million in January and remained steady through February, when 2.7 million employees quit their jobs.
This proves the threat of employees finding greener pastures is very real.
Are your retention efforts prepared?
In search of higher salaries
What exactly are employees looking for? If you believe a recent CNN Money report, it’s higher salaries.
Average pay increases have hovered around the 2% mark since the Great Recession (a time when employee raises were next to nil) — and it appears workers are tired of their pay not keeping pace with inflation.
On top of that, employees don’t believe the fastest way to grab more cash is to walk into HR’s office and ask for a raise. Instead, they feel the best way to pump up their bank accounts is to leave their current employers for others.
And it’s working.
CNN Money told the tales of two job-hopping U.S. workers and the impressive salary gains they’ve been able to muster thanks to their disloyalty to their employers.
The first, Ben Baxter, has quit six different jobs since February of 2013. And for his troubles, he claims he’s increased his salary 31%.
He said his decision came down to this: Remain loyalty to an employer and have his salary remain relatively flat — or leave for a 10% boost in pay.
The second, Mark Bivens, has worked at three different places in the past two years and, as a result, he’s garnered what he calls a “big jump” in pay.
Both employees had one thing in common: They were always actively seeking employment elsewhere.
So there you have it — a boom in job openings and a desire to earn more are threatening to shake up your workforce.
Stories like that of Baxter and Bivens, which are aimed at your workers (CNN was titling it “Job hopping: The fastest way to earn more money”), are becoming more prevalent, and they’ll do nothing but make more employees step out into the job market.
If your business isn’t prepared for that reality, you could be in a world of hurt talent-wise.
One more interesting finding from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: All regions of the country have experienced the recent uptick in employees quitting — so it’s not a phenomenon that’s localized to a few select areas.
