The top reasons people are quitting their jobs right now

According to people2people Recruitment’s 2023 Annual Salary and Employment Report, almost half (46 per cent) of employees who’ve either recently quit or considered quitting their current place of work cited a lack of career opportunities as the primary factor driving them to look elsewhere, almost double the 29 per cent of respondents who answered similarly in 2022.

Low pay was the second-most popular factor driving employees elsewhere, followed by company management (28 per cent), non-supportive culture (27 per cent), and stressful working conditions (26 per cent).

People2people Recruitment Group’s managing director, Mark Smith, said businesses should hold an “unyielding focus on talent attraction and retention” in a 2023 employment market littered with uncertainty in order to “ensure organisations continue to perform in their current market and remain in a strong position to navigate high market volatility”.

In conjunction with Microsoft Work Trend research, the recruitment outfit revealed several key employer considerations for the year ahead, including:

• Diversity, equity, inclusion, and mental health have all increased in importance by 30 per cent in the last three years.
• Employees would be seven times less likely to look for a new job if there was clarity on their work priorities.
• Two-thirds would stay longer if internal job movement was easier, with this rising to 77 per cent for decision makers.
• Seventy-six per cent of Gen Z and Millennials aspire to pursue side hustles in the future.

Rather than being considered as distracting employees from their tasks, Mr Smith explained employer support of their pursuit of side projects could be a “positive way to increase work satisfaction, engagement, and increase talent retention for the younger demographic”.

He added that “employee needs and wants have changed significantly over the past 12 months and are still evolving due to the ever-changing market conditions”.

For employers looking to improve their retention strategies, the report found offering flexible working arrangements to be the main desire of 71 per cent of respondents, followed by increased base pay (59 per cent), increased variable pay (56 per cent), and additional training and development (42 per cent).

“Interestingly, review of employer value proposition decreased significantly, while the desire for regular wellbeing employee surveys and increased annual leave was on par,” Mr Smith concluded.

This article was originally published on HR Leader’s sister brand, Real Estate Business (REB).