Economic Growth Fuels High Employee Turnover

With the economy on the upturn, talent retention is coming to the forefront for employers

A New York Times article cites the 2015 Deloitte survey of more than 3,300 business and HR leaders in 106 countries that found retaining talent was seen as the most important challenge, edging out developing leadership, which has been a long-time top concern.

Also, a study from Spherion of 225 HR managers mentioned in the Times article said far fewer employers were concerned about employee costs in 2015 compared to 2014. One-third of managers, however, said that after finding skilled workers, which is the #1 concern, came turnover and retention. Last year, only 25% had the same concern.

“It’s the No. 1 issue for H.R. professionals,” Chason Hecht, president of Retensa, an employee retention consulting firm, told the Times. Hecht said the problem was “pervasive across industries, but some are hit harder than others”, like healthcare. For healthcare, the main challenge is sourcing and keeping workers to serve an increasingly aging population, who have more health-related issues.

“In my experience, doing this for 15 years, this is the first time it has scored this high,” Josh Bersin, founder of the research firm Bersin by Deloitte and one of the report’s authors, told the Times.

Hayes MacArthur, an HR executive from EisnerAmper, an accounting firm with a workforce of more than 1,300, told the Times that apart from strategies such as reinventing performance reviews and doing exit interviews, one effective strategy is following up with departed talent months later to try to see if they will return to the fold. “When someone returns, it sends a great message to the rest of the firm,” he told the Times.

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