With a slow upturn of the economy and limitations on job mobility, means that employees may become more despondent and even more unproductive in their jobs. The research conducted in the first South African National survey on employee engagement by Kock and McNamara in 2009 revealed that a phenomenal 64% of respondents were looking for new horizons within and outside the company. One way of improving the bottom line without decreasing overheads and expenses is to strengthen employees’ sense of engagement to their jobs and their organisations, and as a result, improve their performance and intent to stay.

The second national employee engagement survey repeated the exercise in 2010 and further examined the relationship between intent to stay (or leave) with those factors that are traditionally associated with boosting employee engagement levels, such as career progression, job satisfaction and financial rewards. A sample of 406 respondents was electronically surveyed across all nine provinces and across most industry sectors, job levels, population groups and disciplines.

The following retention myths were debunked by the survey findings:

1. Satisfaction with career progress is a reliable indicator of intent to stay or leave. It is clear from the findings that many employees will fulfil career aspirations in different organisations.
2. Satisfaction with financial rewards predict intent to stay and offer a ‘catch-all’ strategy for retention. Although the findings indicated that many younger people were unhappy with pay and thought of quitting, this was not true for other employees.
3. Supervisors are the ‘front line’ of engagement. The research findings revealed that the supervisors’ own personal sense of engagement was consistently low across different sectors and must be improved if they are to play a greater role in engaging their subordinates.
4.  The human resources discipline are the champions of employee engagement. The research found that the HR practitioners had low levels of personal engagement, which poses a challenge for any talent retention strategy.

Companies can therefore no longer assume that career paths, brand loyalty and rewards for high-flyers will retain valued employees. Consequently, they will need to recognise that financial rewards and organisational attachment are not the catch-all strategy for retention and that employees in the new world of work have developed an open, flexible attitude to their relationship with employers.

Given these conclusions, organisations should place less emphasis on the indefinite retention of valued employees, and more emphasis on ensuring that while people are in their employ, they are enabled to perform to a high level and deliver quality results.  This shift of focus involves two strategic steps, namely, moving away from monitoring the ‘exit’ process to placing more emphasis on the ‘arrival’ process, by attracting, screening and on-boarding candidates with the appropriate personal engagement attributes and potential for performance; and by creating the environmental conditions for rapidly enhancing the level of employee connectedness to their work.

For more information on the South African Employee Engagement Survey Report, contact Ruwayne on +2711 453 0555.