Are Your Employees Ready to Quit?

By Rieva Lesonsky

Are your employees ready to mutiny? Despite national unemployment hovering around 9 percent, they might be, according to a new study by global consulting firm Mercer LLC reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Thirty-two percent of U.S. employees report they are seriously considering leaving their jobs. The risk is especially big with younger employees. Some 40 percent of those aged 25-34 and a full 44 percent of those 24 and under are ready to bolt.

With finding new jobs still so tough, why would employees consider leaving? Pay, benefits and health care issues are three reasons for their dissatisfaction, according to Mercer. Employee satisfaction with their base pay has dropped from 58 percent in 2005 to 53 percent today. Satisfaction with company benefits programs has also declined, from 76 percent in 2005 to 68 percent today. And overall satisfaction with company-provided health-care benefits has declined from 76 percent in 2005 to 66 percent today.

With nearly all companies big and small having cut back in areas of salary and benefits during the recession, and more firms forcing employees to cover a greater share of rising health-care costs, I’m not sure employees in search of greener pastures in these areas are going to find them. But as a small business owner who has more to lose when employees leave, you need to think about what you can do to overcome these perceived issues. Otherwise, you could lose key staffers and then end up competing for new hires with big corporations that have bigger, better benefits plans.

One solution to improve employee satisfaction is simply to educate employees about the cost of benefits that you do provide. Providing greater transparency about how much their health insurance really costs—and the share that the business is covering compared to their share–is usually pretty eye-opening.

Another option for making employees happier is allowing employees to have more say in choosing the benefits that matter to them, whether that’s weighing in on paid benefits like 401(k) plans or no-cost benefits like flextime or casual dress.

Increasing base pay or salary is a thornier issue, but if your business is starting to rebound a bit, you may want to consider instituting some kind of profit-sharing or bonus plan where employees’ rewards are tied to the financial performance of your company or their department. This ensures you don’t have to shell out extra money unless you have it to spend, and also helps everyone pull together.

The Mercer study is just one of many that have shown employers can’t be complacent about employee satisfaction—no matter how tough times are.

Image by Flickr user supertobor (Creative Commons)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 6th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Small Business, small business, Workforce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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