How much of a raise would it take for you to switch jobs?
According to one new survey, not very much.
I get lots and lots of surveys and research sent to me, and to be honest, most of them are digging into deadly dull topics that don’t generate much meaningful or interesting results.
This is about a survey that did have some noteworthy, revealing findings to it, and it comes from TINYpulse, a company that publishes weekly engagement surveys and says it’s “goal is to give leaders a pulse on how engaged or frustrated their employees are, helping managers spark dialogue that results in organizational change.”
Here’s what they asked: “How likely would you be to leave for a 10 percent raise?” The answer? Almost a quarter of the workers surveyed (23 percent) said they would.
Or to put it more directly, a quarter of your employees are willing to jump ship and take another job for a mere 10 percent bump in pay.
Given all that we hear about the terrible state of employee engagement today, this is the best indicator that I’ve seen that confirms that employee engagement is pretty much in the toilet for a good chunk of America’s workforce.
Of course, the “why” behind this question is pretty important, the Tinypulse team dug into this high willingness for employees to leave. Here are some of the reasons, and responses from respondents, that may better explain “why.”
I don’t know what it is going to take for business executives to wake up and hear the alarm going off, but survey numbers like this should frighten them if they care at all about keeping their workforce intact and moving ahead. It’s hard to keep growing and progressing if you’re churning employees, and as the TINYpulse survey suggests, it wouldn’t take much for a good chunk of your workforce to head for the door.
As the TINYpulse analysis noted:
We know it’s impossible to change an employee’s personal life, and sometimes it can be tough to match competitor wages. But appreciation and professional opportunities? Those are free to offer around, and companies are foolish to hold back and lose valuable employees.”
The “growth opportunities” issue is an important one, because the survey drilled into this and found that only 25 percent of those surveyed felt they had professional growth opportunities, meaning that a whopping 75 percent — yes, three out of four employees — felt they didn’t have any chance of growing in their current job.
The analysis said this finding was “remarkable,” and it certainly is, but when they broke down why 75 percent of all employees see lackluster opportunities (or no opportunities), three main culprits jumped out:
Add into this that the TINYpulse 2015 Employee Engagement & Organizational Culture Report found that only 31 percent of employees feel strongly valued, and you can clearly see some of the critical factors leading to such a disengaged and ready-to-run workforce.
The survey analysis concluded with this piece of advice, and although it’s more of a call to action, it is clearly what executives need to do if they want to keep their employees and help them to be happier, more engaged, and most importantly, more productive:
You want happy employees, right? You want engaged employees, right? And you want retained employees, right? If you answered “yes” to all of these, then it’s time to get the ball rolling and make the organizational changes needed to build a world-class workplace.”
TINYpulse surveyed 400,000 employees from August 2014 to August 2015 for this study. “Many responses were to the recurring happiness question, which were averaged together employee by employee. These happiness averages were used in Pearson correlations with the remaining 1-10 Likert scale questions to determine the strongest drivers of employee happiness. Percentages were also taken of those that responded with 9 or 10 to these Likert questions. ”
Of course, there’s more than employees ready to bolt in the news this week. Here are some HR and workplace-related items you may have missed. This is TLNT’s weekly wrap-up of news, trends, and insights from the world of talent management. I do it so you don’t have to.
