Why Employees Stay or Leave

When reviewing retention rates, employers often focus solely on why employees choose to leave the company. However, doing so ignores potentially valuable data on why employees would decide to stay. To best understand employee retention rates and how to improve them, it’s imperative to review both why employees choose to stay as well as why they leave. Organizations that take the time to understand why employees leave the company are better equipped to adjust policies and procedures to maintain their workforce.

Why Do Employees Stay?

Satisfaction with the workplace, management and overall organization are some of the general factors that affect why employees choose to remain with a company. Other employee retention success factors include:

• Compensation and benefits

• Strong company culture

• Meaningful work

• Employee engagement and motivation

• Recognition

Happy employees are less likely to quit. When organizations understand what makes employees content in their role, it allows them to review and alter policies and procedures to reinforce the aspects that employees like most.

Why Do Employees Leave?

Much like the reasons why employees stay with a company, the reasons they leave are also affected by several different factors. Specifically, factors that influence an employee’s decision to quit include:

• Burnout

• A lack of appreciation or recognition

• A lack of professional growth opportunities

• A toxic company culture

• Poor management relationships

Workers who feel uninspired or underappreciated often look for a new job in order to feel passionate about their work again.

Summary

By taking time to review the reasons employees leave and why they choose to stay, employers can gather important data on the organizational practices that work and those that don’t. This data enables employers to reinforce the good qualities of policies and procedures that attract and keep employees, while also changing aspects of the workplace that negatively impact employee retention rates. Click on the corresponding pages to learn more information about employee retention and the factors that affect it.