People are leaving more and staying more

A real Schrödinger’s cat job market

We have a retention issue. (Again.) But most companies won’t fully realize it until Office Dork™️ hiring kicks back into high gear. (At which point we’ve got another Great Resignation on our hands.)

Before I get started [SPOILER]: as is always the case with retention, all roads lead back to poor onboarding.

We noticed over the past few months a lot of companies we talked to had frustrations with newer employees bailing in the first year. Sometimes right away, sometimes at the year mark. It’s difficult to quantify these sentiments, but the vibes are certainly there.

Then looking at our own placements. People who left their jobs within the first few months effectively doubled in Q1 2024 vs the 2023 average. Still in low single-digit percentage numbers, but relevant.

(Note: I feel obligated to mention that Hirewell provides guarantee periods for these situations. No, we don’t leave our clients holding the bag.)

When things don’t pan out, there are typically two reasons:

1. “Bad” hire. It wasn’t a great mutual fit to begin with.

2. Poor onboarding. A good fit was butchered by a subpar first impression.

And there’s plenty of data on all of this.

👉Only 38% of new employees (under 6 months) plan to stay at their organization for three or more years. And 66% feel included at their company, a 4% drop from 2022 and well below the 73% of all other employees.  (Here.)

👉37.9% of employees are leaving their jobs within the first year. 2/3 of those within the first 6 months. (Here. )

👉But what’s weird is that quitting is on the *decline*. 2023 resignations were down 12% from 2022. (Here.)

So why is total quitting going down, but new hire quitting is rising?

1. If you survived a layoff, you’re happy to just have a job.
2. Anyone who started a new job in 2021-2022 benefitted from peak salary inflation. And isn’t in a hurry to test the market and take a pay cut.
3. If you did get let go or find yourself in an awful spot and need to start fresh, there’s a strong chance you pay closer attention to red flags. And just not up for another bad experience.
4. One thing that doesn’t get talked about much: people who started their careers during the pandemic are experiencing office life for the first time and are having a rude awakening. 

A lot of these things are macro level that you can’t really control. But what is in your control is onboarding. Employees who receive effective onboarding feel 18 times more committed to their organization. And only 43% of employees report that they received an onboarding process that lasted longer than a day.

Tldr – Greet your new team members. Train them. Help them understand what their role is and how to be effective.

They’ll stay longer.

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.