Business, beware! High turnover ahead, experts say

NEW YORK, Aug 31: Chances are, you're job hunting. One in five workers is actively seeking a new job, and a majority are keeping an eye out for something better if the economy continues to improve, new research shows, fueling what experts say is a sweeping tide of turnover ahead for US businesses.

''That's really a wake-up call for employers,'' said Stuart Itkin, chief marketing officer at Kronos Inc., workforce consultants which commissioned the ''Working in America: What Employees Want'' survey released this week.

''Companies should expect to see increasing turnover,'' he said.

''We're seeing a workforce that by and large continues to be discontent, that more often than not feels undervalued, underappreciated and undercompensated,'' he said. To workers who are looking around for new opportunities, he said, ''the grass is looking a lot greener.'' Twenty per cent of survey respondents said they were actively seeking a job, and 54 per cent described themselves as passively job-hunting, meaning they might scan want ads, it said. And 58 per cent said they would leave their jobs if the economy continued to improve, a 12-point increase from last year, it said.

''The pendulum is swinging,'' said Laura Stack, productivity expert and author of the recent book, ''Find More Time.'' ''It used to be people were afraid of losing their jobs in a down economy without being able to find another job. They had been tolerating a lot in past few years,'' she said.

''Now that we're seeing job growth and an improved economy, unemployment levels going down, workers have had it. They've basically said, 'Enough. You've treated me badly long enough.' I would not be surprised to see employees leaving organizations in droves in search of a better life.''

That itch to move crosses all age groups, said Robert Morison, co-author of ''Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills and Talent.'' Younger workers tend not to trust corporations after seeing how their parents fared, mid-career workers feel stuck in dead end jobs and older workers who want to work past retirement age tend to want to do something different, he said.

''You've got really good motivation for employees of all ages to be looking around,'' said Morison. ''Employers should be aware right now that the market's going to tighten.'' Facing that tide, he added, employers might want to treat their employees well because job-seekers have so much information available on the Internet.

''If you're a crummy employer, word spreads fast, people can look it up and you can't change that perception quickly,'' he said.

Companies most likely to take a turnover hit are those that performed well during hard times and provided a safe haven for employees who sacrificed higher pay for job security, said Itkin.

''Now that the economy is becoming stable, security is less of an issue, and some of those best people who have been in well-run organizations are the most vulnerable to a brain drain,'' he said.

Employees in the study listed competitive salary, full health-care coverage, company-matched pension plans, bonuses, flex-time and compressed work weeks as items that would tend to keep them in their jobs.

Doing the research for Kronos was Harris Interactive Inc., which conducted the online study from July 24 to July 31 among a nationwide cross-section of 1,051 full-time employed adults. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

REUTERS