Clash of the Generations

Chapter 4SETTING THE STAGE FOR GREAT PERFORMANCE

Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person—not just an employee—are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.

—Anne M. Mulcahy¹

Whoever first coined the saying “Employees join companies and leave managers” certainly hit the nail on the head—and it's more true today than ever before for employees of all ages. The employees most likely to jump ship are (perhaps not surprisingly) members of the Millennial generation.

According to a 2014 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employees between the ages of 25 and 34 years old have a median job tenure of 3 years (down from 3.2 years in 2012). This isn't an issue among only your youngest employees, though: the median tenure for all workers is a mere 4.6 years. On the bright side, older employees tend to stick around a lot longer:

For example, the median tenure of workers ages 55 to 64 (10.4 years) was more than three times that of workers ages 25 to 34 years (3.0 years). A larger proportion of older workers than younger workers had 10 years or more of tenure. Among workers ages 60 to 64, 58 percent were employed for at least 10 years with their current employer in January 2014, compared with only 12 percent of those ages 30 to 34.²

The results of a 2016 CareerBuilder study support the belief that employees have one eye on the door: “76 percent of full‐time ...