New research about why female employees leave shows significant trends in staff retention for 2014. Find out the employee motivation behind voluntary leavers and managing female employees.

Why Female Employees Leave and Staff Retention 2014

great{with}talent has collected exit data from 12,837 workers, 6,870 of these are women. The results show why female employees leave in 2014.

It also shows the importance of conducting exit interviews as the results can improve staff retention strategies. This has currently become even more important due to the skills shortage. (Click the image for more.)

Read: The Top Employee Engagement Initiatives for 2014.

Comparing these results to the overall reasons why employees leave shows significant trends. Like with the entire group, this exit data focuses on voluntary leavers. As the graph shows, this is the vast majority of the sample group.

The results of this staff survey, however, shows more ‘unhappy’ and involuntary leavers among female employees. This is a troubling trend.

It’s clear that staff retention and employee engagement strategies need to be tailored. Female employees evidently have specific needs which are not being met.

Why Employees Leave and Staff Retention Ideas

Female employees listed the lack of promotion opportunities (35%) as their top reason for leaving their role. This is slightly less of a concern than the average.

This continues to be a key sticking point for why employees leave. It’s important to be honest with staff from the outset. By doing this employee engagement is likely to be higher due to realistic expectations.

Opposed to the overall group, a lack of relationship between job performance and reward (31%) came second. Therefore employee benefits engage female staff.

Whilst a more competitive salary available elsewhere (30%) came a close third. This is also below the average cause for voluntary leavers.

It is clear, however, that staying competitive is of high importance in any industry. Unfortunately in these turbulent times this can be difficult.

Whereas the fourth was participants being unclear as to how to progress within the organisation (29%). Likewise, this shows a lack of communication.

Read: New Employee Onboarding in 2014.

All these goals can be achieved on a tight budget. Organisations can use mentoring, shadowing, low cost rewards and creating a collaborative culture.

These techniques can train employees on a budget, give them a forum to ask questions and simply increase employee engagement. This in itself improves staff retention alongside productivity and even customer relations.

Unlike the overall group, however, a low morale (28%) was in the top five reasons for why employees leave. This factor even surpassed an inadequate level of pay.

This shows that female employees will leave when offered better pay but it’s not a top prority. Whereas morale is an issue.

By merely giving feedback to female employees, morale can be boosted. Moreover, flexible working hours can make staff feel like individuals.

These are simple low cost employee engagement ideas. There are also many more which can fit the culture and needs of any organisation.

Exit surveys can go a long way to finding the specific needs of a company to increase staff retention. These are imperative in the current economic times and with a skills shortage.

Contact great{with}talent and find out more about their LastOpinion exit interviews.

(Main image from PCM Software)