Wanderlust sets in before too long, its part of human nature. Even the best and most satisfying can start to seem stifling to us when we get the idea in our head about the grass being greener elsewhere. It’s up to the company leaders to ensure that enough is done to make sure each and every employee feels their continued presence at the company is the best outcome for all parties. But does every employee feel as wanted? We asked employees, “Do Your Company Leaders Do What They Should to Retain You as an Employee?”
The information comes from the latest reading of an ongoing study by Comparably.
Just over half of all employees felt their company leaders did enough work to retain them. Women were slightly more likely to answer “yes,” but it’s clear that overall many employees are not being continually wooed to stay put. Certainly, there are inevitably some employees that a company doesn’t want to retain – in such cases, a lack of overtures makes sense.
When responses are broken up into ethnicities, we see that African-American and Hispanic/Latino responses are higher even than the score for all female workers. Each group polled higher than all male employees did above, but it’s notable that Asian-Americans – so often highly paid in tech – and Caucasians report the least amount of retention efforts.
Executives and HR employees are far more positive – 14% higher than the closest runners-up – and IT workers are far more negative – 6% lower than the next-highest department – than the average department on this issue. HR and Execs are usually the most positive about company policies, and negative responses to this retention question would probably court self-criticism. Departments that are “in the trenches,” like IT and Operations, are often the least positive about company policies. Most departmental responses are much closer to the 53/56 averages we saw for all males and female employees.
According the responses by age group, it would seem that company leaders work harder at retaining young employees than they do experienced or long-term ones. The most positive responses were from Gen Z age employees (18-24,) with numbers dropping with each age bracket from there.
A similar downward trend is visible when responses are broken up into work experience level of respondents. Entry-level workers felt their company leaders did enough to keep them around at a rate 15% higher than employees who had worked at a company for over 10 years. At the 10 year point, it may be felt that an employee is in for the long haul, and that overtures intended to retain them are less necessary.
Latest reading as of January.15..
