No. 1 Reason People Quit – and What You Can Do About It | 2-Minute Video

People quit for a lot of reasons.

But the No. 1 reason it happens is a telling sign of what’s going on in an organization — or what’s NOT going on, but should be.

Here’s a hint: People leave most often because they can’t see where else to go but out the door.

What’s Up in This Episode: Why People Quit

In this episode of HRMorning’s 3-Point, our expert, Dr. Mary Hayes, Director of Research People and Performance at ADP Research, shows us the latest research behind turnover. Dr. Hayes and her team dug deep to find out why people leave. More importantly, they help employers recognize what they can do to prevent that turnover.

Click, watch and listen for more details on the No. 1 reason people quit now and ways you can stop their exit.

Transcript (edited for clarity):

I’m going to start with the bad news here. 75% of employees quit their jobs within the first three years.

ADP researchers found this happens across industries, job titles and salaries.

So the question is …

Dr. Mary Hayes, Director of Research People and Performance at ADP Research: “Why does it happen? Well, a lot of times, people don’t see the opportunities within organizations. On the sentiment side, where we look at what people are feeling within the workplace, we know that people do have higher intent to leave when they’re not receiving support from their employers to be up-skilled, to receive a promotion.” 

Now, the good news. HR professionals and front-line managers can prevent this kind of feel-no-respect exodus. It’s a combination of informal and formal training that can help employees rise up.

Hayes: “Now, if they had a great manager, more than likely they’ll carry some of that with them. And so that’s kind of the mentoring that needs to happen is this manager mentors this manager, this manager mentors individual contributor who they see the promise in. So it’s the informal training, but also the formal training that comes from HR of ‘This is how you talk to your people, know your people, see your people, think of them as humans and not cogs in the wheel of some sort.’” 

Now, say we get mentoring and training right. You can’t promote everyone to be a manager. Then what?

Hayes: “Maybe there is a way to look at promotion differently. And in a lot of organizations, you have to take on people to become a manager and to receive a promotion. There could be lateral movement that your job increases in job complexity but doesn’t actually take on people. Maybe HR needs to reconsider its hierarchy, reconsider how we retain our workers.” 

Knowing the No. 1 reason people quit, let’s avoid it. We want to:

• Mentor more. Give employees more informal training with good managers.
• Train right. Don’t just train people to do their jobs better. Train them to be leaders of some sort.
• Promote differently. Not all promotions need to be upward. Make more lateral moves.

You can beat the bad news around turnover. Give employees reasons and opportunities to stay, grow and thrive.

More Resources on Preventing Turnover

Of course, you don’t want to be in a position where anyone plans to quit. So you want to take steps to avoid turnover. In fact, you want to do more than just “keep” employees. You want to keep them happy and engaged in your workplace.

To that, here are more resources on avoiding turnover:

• 11 Powerful Questions to Prevent Turnover | 2-Minute Video
• Bad Managers Cause Turnover: 5 Tips to Prevent It
• Cut Turnover, Keep Your Best People | 2-Minute Video
• How To – and Why You Should – Calculate Turnover Rate