Discover The Top 5 Reasons Workers Want To Quit Their Jobs
By Bryan Robinson, Co-founder and CAO (Chief Architect Officer) of ComfortZones Digital
Date Published: May 3, 2022
As we enter Mental Health Awareness Month in May, record numbers of workers are parting ways with their employers, and they’re doing it on their own terms, often for mental health reasons. Over 38 million workers quit their jobs in 2021, causing a labor shortage that’s giving workers more leverage than ever. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4.4 million employees quit their jobs in February of this year alone. With the pandemic putting a focus on the fragility of life, it’s left American workers unhappy and wondering, if this is really how they want to spend their lives. And they are looking for new rules of engagement including higher salaries, better work-life conditions and more flexible work schedules.
New Rules Of Engagement
A recent study by Flexjobs found that employees are stuck in jobs they dislike and that 30% of them want to quit. The survey of 2,202 workers gave the following five top reasons for saying, “Take this job and shove it”:
Toxic company culture (62%)
Low salary (59%)
Poor management (56%)
lack of healthy work-life boundaries (49%)
Not allowing remote work (43%)
Another study of 1,000 employees by ConsumerAffairs reported the five top reasons employees took the leap are:
Seeking higher pay (47%)
Seeking better benefits (42%),
Insufficient raises (41%)
Needs not met by pay (40%
Pay inequality (39%)
“We're no longer in a crazy time. We're in new times, which calls for new rules of engagement when attracting talent—especially when recruiters and employers are struggling to fill roles,” said Workable’s content strategy manager, Keith MacKenzie. “The onus is now on employers to really step up their talent attraction game and loosen the requirements for a role. There's a huge path to get there: find and hire those top prospects and develop them when they're with you.”
What Makes A Desirable Workplace?
The answer to what makes an appealing workplace often depends on who you ask as you can see from the surveys. But many factors play a starring role: an empathic boss, upper management’s caring attitude, a relaxed and productive atmosphere, financial benefits, job security, commitment to excellence and open and honest communication. And you can add “opportunity for growth” to the list, according to a study at Blind. The anonymous professional network recently surveyed more than 10,000 Blind users from December 9-31, 2019, uncovering remarkable insight into the link between employee happiness and growth. Nearly 68% of the workforce was satisfied with the growth opportunities at their current employment, and 51% of all employees claimed to be happy at their workplace.
According to Kyum Kim, Blind co-founder, “Overall, Blind found that employees who felt they had significant growth were also the happiest and, as self-reported employee growth declined, so did happiness. Nearly 80% of employees who reported they had significant personal growth also reported they were happy in their current role.“ The survey also identified the top 15 U.S. companies with the happiest employees in ranked order: Netflix, Bloomberg, ServiceNow, Google, Tesla, PayPal, Pinterest, Facebook, Lyft, LinkIn, Spotify,T-Mobile, VMware, Indeed.com and Cisco.