Two in five workers could leave their workplaces in the next six to 12 months, with the majority citing lack of available career prospects, a survey has found.
The poll by Go1, which looked at data from 2,000 workers who have changed jobs at least once in their career, found that 40 per cent of employees were looking to leave their jobs in the next six to 12 months.
The most common reason, cited by 60 per cent of employees, was to seek better career prospects. The analysis revealed this turnover could cost the UK economy up to £17bn.
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It also found that a third (32 per cent) of employees would quit their jobs if they did not have a good work-life balance.
Gen Z workers who did not see career advancement at their current company would job hop after an average of 1.7 years. Almost a third (30 per cent) said they would leave a dead-end role in four months.
Meanwhile, millennials were quitting their jobs after 3.2 years on average, while Gen X left after 4.3 years and baby boomers after 5.7 years. If they were unhappy in the role, this plummeted to an 11-month stay for millennials, a year for Gen X and 18 months for the baby boomer generation.
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Chris Eigeland, CRO and co-founder of Go1, said businesses should not see Gen Z’s ambition as a threat, especially with such a high number of skilled young talent leaving roles early. “By offering upskilling opportunities to employees companies show they value career development, which can satisfy the future workforce’s drive to have more meaning behind their work,” he said.
The survey results also revealed that more than three-quarters (78 per cent) of workers would be happy to learn new skills in their role; three in five (60 per cent) of 16 to 24-year-olds had left a job as a result of limited growth opportunities; and more than a third (36 per cent) felt managers should hold regular one-to-one sessions.
Nearly half (44 per cent) of workers would leave for a better income, and a third (32 per cent) would leave for a better work-life balance. A fifth (20 per cent) would quit in hope of gaining more meaning from their job.
Nearly a third (30 per cent) of staff said that they would leave their current job to seek a better lifestyle, and one in five (18 per cent) said they would leave to escape a toxic culture.
Ian Moore, people director and founder of Lodge Court, said that, too often, companies put effort into defining their values and culture, without properly implementing it into their teams. “Make your culture impossible to miss by creating posters, badges and company videos to educate and influence your teams,” he advised.
He said that while training was valuable, it was easy to get wrong, and suggested staff be given an individual budget to spend on a course of their choice. This would give them the ability to learn, and show they are worth investing in in the long term, he said.