New talent marketing for business growth can be expensive and time consuming. So, it may be worrisome to learn that 16% of Canadian employees changed jobs in the past year, according to a survey we at market research agency Callosum Marketing conducted in March 2022 - that’s a sizeable chunk of the workforce! In this article, we’ll share other data from this survey that may help you understand WHO is changing jobs, WHY they are changing jobs, and WHAT you as an employer can do with this information. Â
WHO is changing jobs?
As mentioned, in our survey of Canadian workers across a full spectrum of industries, we saw that 16% of respondents changed jobs in the past year. However, that varies quite a bit with age – see the chart below. 41% of our respondents’ last job change was 5 years ago or more – a result that similarly varied with age. It may not come as a surprise that younger respondents were more likely to have changed, as those earlier in their careers may be trying different things to find what is the best place for them. However, this isn’t the only factor you can use to predict movement of employees.Â
WHY change jobs?
We asked our respondents about their satisfaction with their current job and their likelihood of switching jobs in the coming years – and encouragingly, intention to stay put is significantly higher among satisfied employees. Our analysis of Canadian employees suggested that 3 factors lead the charge on drivers of satisfaction:
A sense of accomplishment and fulfillment at work
The tasks that the employee is completing
A sense of belonging within a team/company
WHAT to do about it?
Accept that some employees, particularly the younger generations, are going to keep tabs on the job market and potentially make moves. The majority (55%) of our respondents had done some form of job search activity in the past month alone (browsing postings online & updating a resume were our most common responses) - and this was observed much more frequently amongst younger respondents, as you’ll see in the table below. However, once again we see that those with high job satisfaction were less likely to be on the hunt, which leads to our second recommendation.
Conduct a satisfaction survey with your own employees. How satisfied are your employees? What makes them feel accomplished and fulfilled? Do they enjoy their tasks? Do they feel like part of a team? By investing in a survey, you can answer these questions that can keep your employee satisfaction effort and budget more focused.Â
You may notice some of your employees are active on LinkedIn, which is normal. However, keeping your employees satisfied may curb the rate at which your employees actually leave. We are constantly conducting employee satisfaction surveys for our clients and the business market insights uncovered help them to adapt their offers based on real feedback as opposed to assumptions. Through our experiences, we have established benchmarks and norms for job satisfaction and other key metrics, allowing us to determine how positive or negative your internal results are. Contact us at info@callosum.ca to discuss what employee research methodology to use to develop insights specific to YOUR employees.