One-third of your employees will apply for jobs elsewhere in the coming year.

Despite the fact that enthusiasm among Dutch workers scores well, 'good' is no longer good enough, according to the report. Thirty percent of us have applied for jobs outside our current company in the past year, and as many as 35% are planning to do so. And these are not just your less enthusiastic employees, becauseeven 26% of your Promoters(your biggest fans) have recently applied for jobs elsewhere. This is remarkably high, because in the previous report, Promoters appeared to be more loyal, with only 1 in 7 (14%) applying for jobs elsewhere...

The majority of employees who apply for jobs elsewhere have been with you for between one and two years. This is painful, because these are precisely the employees in whom you have recently invested the most time and money (recruitment, negotiation, onboarding, start-up phase). Integron has observed that attention to this group of people often wanes after the first year. Employees get a "is this it?" feeling and start looking around.

"Many employees are lured in with attractive promises... after which they are often neglected and the manager's attention shifts."

Has your father also been working for the same company for almost 40 years? We cannot expect the younger generations to behave in the same way. And that is something companies need to respond to. Because the survey shows that for almost half of Millennials and Gen Zers, the door to another organization is wide open.

The reasons why people apply for jobs are fairly consistent across groups and job levels. The most common reasons are listed below:

1. Job satisfaction and/or atmosphere
Employees do not experience sufficient job satisfaction.

2. Management/supervisor
Employees either feel that their manager(s) do not appreciate them enough, find their leadership qualities disappointing, feel that they do not fulfill their agreements sufficiently, or have too little confidence in their manager(s).

3. Lack of growth/challenge
Employees have too few opportunities for advancement or development. Or they find their work/job insufficiently challenging.

4. Terms of employment
The salary and fringe benefits no longer meet the wishes or needs of the employees.

Although "Terms of employment" is not number 1 on this list, it is often the decisive factor that ultimately leads someone to switch jobs.

Relatively speaking, there are fewer job applications within the government and healthcare sectors. Relatively speaking, the highest number of applications are received in the ICT and business services sectors. This is because people working in the public sector are often more satisfied with their terms of employment and have a good work-life balance. In the healthcare sector, we also see that employees derive a relatively high level of job satisfaction. The ICT and business services sectors score less well on these same themes.

We don't need to explain to you how annoying staff shortages are, as this is an issue in almost every industry. This information is therefore extremely valuable, but only if you do something with it in your organization.

So consider what you can do to address the top four reasons why employees would apply for jobs elsewhere. Pay attention to theatmosphere, working conditions, andleadershipin your organization. Offer asafe working environment wherea goodwork-life balanceis a priority.

For even more insights and useful tips, you can download the entire Employee Experience reporthere;).