What is Driving Employees to Want to Leave Their Jobs?

There has been a lot written about whether workers are ready to leave for another job or not, and the recent What’s Working survey by HR consultant Mercer seemed to add a lot of fuel to the fire.

Get ready for the debate to burn a little hotter.

Kevin Wheeler, in a post over on our sister website ERE.net titled The Door is Opening and People Are Leaving, uses the What’s Working survey to make the point that, “there is going to be an exodus of workers soon from businesses all across the U.S. … Frustrated employees are seeking new opportunities in record numbers, but if you are prepared, your talent shortages may be over.”

He lists four primary reasons for the upcoming employee exodus:

Pay — or the lack of reasonable salary increases;
The amount of work employees are being asked to do;
The attitude that younger workers — Millennials — have about the sometimes inflexible and restrictive policies they deal with on the job; and,
A lack of employee development and training.

The Mercer What’s Working survey has been roundly debated, with both TLNT’s Lance Haun (Surprise: It’s Easier to Say You’re Leaving Your Job Than to Actually Do It) and contributor Derek Irvine (Assessing Employees Ready to Leave: Here are 2 Questions You Need to Ask) pretty much taking to task the analysis of the research by Mercer and others.

Wheeler makes a case for working to accept the findings of What’s Working and gives some “creative tactics that can help.” It’s worth taking a good look at — and you can find Wheeler’s ERE piece here — because my guess is that this article is just the beginning of another round of articles and commentaries digging into the veracity of the Mercer research — and whether employees actually are ready to make a move — yet again.