One Bad Reason Good Employees Jump Ship

LinkedIn’s Talent Blog recently offered a highly educational infographic, Why More Employees Are Considering Leaving Their Companies.

The infographic contains a variety of useful insights and data—but one of the key story lines is this:

LinkedIn surveyed employed individuals worldwide, asking what would convince them to leave their employer; their top response was “better compensation and benefits.” LinkedIn also surveyed employees who had actually changed jobs recently, asking what convinced them to change employers; their top response was “greater opportunities for advancement.”

Given the reality of why people left their employers, LinkedIn wondered whether organizations have failed to create sufficient internal mobility programs—programs that would have kept people from jumping ship. But further research showed the existence of “well-defined internal mobility programs” throughout a large majority of companies in the U.S., Canada, India, Britain and Australia.

So what’s behind this discrepancy? The LinkedIn infographic states, “According to our Exit Survey, HR and talent acquisition professionals overestimate employee awareness of their internal mobility programs by more than 2X … Plus, 69% of British and Indian, 68% of American and Canadian and 60% of Australian Exit Survey respondents said it was easier to find an open position outside rather than inside their previous company.”

That’s utterly terrible news.

Yes, “preventable turnover” happens. But it shouldn’t happen because employees aren’t aware of internal mobility options. What makes this situation especially deplorable is that we have a mechanism in place to continually remind employees about internal mobility and job openings: our performance review process.

Sadly, too many performance reviews skip right past internal career pathing. Reviews focus on performance gaps and targets—and little else. This has to change.

The cost of employees jumping ship (especially good employees) is far too great. As the LinkedIn infographic shows, the annual savings from a mere 1% reduction in preventable turnover would be $7.5 million for an employer in the U.S.

Bottom line, our performance reviews should be one more tool we use to prevent good people from jumping ship needlessly.