Staff shifting

Staff EMPLOYEES are likely to take advantage of the recovering economy and stronger jobs market to seek new work opportunities, a report released this week has found.

The survey found that employees Australia wide are waiting for the right opportunity to leave their jobs in search of a better one.

Insync Surveys’ review concluded that retention initiatives would be more important to employers in 2010 than any other year, finding that 87 per cent of the reasons behind staff turnover in 2009 were within the employer’s control.

The report, the second of its kind for Insync after the first survey in 2007, surveyed 1,548 employees to gauge the reasons employees leave employment.

The number one reason for individuals leaving their jobs was defined as ‘personal reasons’ (13 per cent).

Other significant reasons included lack of opportunity for career advancement (12 per cent) and lack of development opportunities (9 per cent).

The number of employees moving on due to work stress doubled from 4 per cent in 2007 to 8 per cent in 2009, while the proportion citing lack of job satisfaction as their reason decreased from 14 per cent to 10 per cent.

But job satisfaction decreasing in rank doesn’t necessarily mean employees are happier in their jobs than they were in 2007.

Insync head James Garriock said the employment landscape had changed since 2007, and that staff turnover would be above the long-term average by the second half of 2010.

“This is an important and urgent issue because most organisations are oblivious to the threat,” Mr Garriock said.

Insync’s report warned that an organisation’s treatment of employees during the time of crisis will play a pivotal role in future retention.

Employers that chose to treat staff well during the GFC, thereby holding on to key staff, will reap the benefits as other organisations lose talented employees to competitors.

On the other side of that coin, employers who used measures such as forced leave without pay may have sown the seeds of departure now that the economy is looking up.

“Employees are out of the woods, but the organisations they work for aren’t,” Mr Garriock said.

The survey was conducted in separate generational groups, allowing the differences between ‘baby boomers’, ‘gen-x’ and ‘gen-y’ reasons for leaving a particular role to be highlighted.

The report found ‘enrichment factors’ such as recognition, skill development and advancement were critical to members of generation Y, with a higher proportion of them leaving their job for career and professional development in 2009 than any other generation.