Originally posted to the TribeHR blog at: 84% of Your Employees Want to Leave

A study released by Manpower indicated that 84% of employees were planning to look for a new job in 2011—up from 60% of employees the year prior. You can read more about the report in the CNN and Huffington Post coverage, but if you’d like to do something about it, you may want to consider working on your employee engagement.

Several studies have demonstrated that a key way to reduce employee turnover is to increase employee engagement. According to a study conducted by the Corporate Leadership Council, an HR-focused membership program of the Corporate Executive Board, “increasing an employee’s level of engagement can potentially improve performance by 20 percent and reduce the employee’s probability of departure by 87%".

Similarly, another case involving the United Parcel Service, shows a similar outcome. In an attempt to retain part-time workers, the firm used different methods to increase employee engagement. The result was very positive, as “part-time turnover had dropped to 6 percent.” This equated to 600 workers staying, and allowed the company to save $1 million in hiring costs over that year.

In short, as the global economy pulls out of recession, don’t consider the Manpower report a harbinger of doom and gloom—there are things you can do to help retain your teams. Starting with engagement-building tools is a great first step.