Hold the merriment for a moment, something is happening in the workplace. Walker Information’s 2007 Loyalty in the Workplace study found employee disloyalty is on the rise. The percentage of “high risk” employees (36%) – those who plan to leave their employer within the next two years – now outnumbers the percentage of loyal employees (34%). This trend is frightening when you consider the costs of lost productivity and high turnover
Walker also reports that despite employees’ overall willingness to be involved in strategy development, just 44% indicated that they were involved. And only 50% of the employees felt senior leaders communicated the strategy well. (More evidence to support the need to listen to and engage employees as mentioned in my last post.)
There’s no one simple solution. According to Walker’s 2007 Loyalty Study, the top experiential drivers of employee loyalty include:
- Fairness at work
- Employer care and concern
- Trust in employees
- Feelings of accomplishment
- Satisfaction day-to-day.
In other words, it takes more than just a once-a-year bonus to keep employees.