If retaining high performers is important to your organization, you might want to pay attention to a recent study that examined key variables that influence such employees’ decisions about whether to stay with the organization or leave. One result in particular might surprise you – and I don’t mean that in a good way.
The study, written by Dr. A. Nyberg and published in the May 2010 issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, examined how employees’ decisions about whether to voluntarily leave the organization were influenced by performance, pay growth, pay for performance, promotions, labor market conditions, and job satisfaction. In particular, he compared and contrasted decisions of higher performers in the workplace and lower performers.
Among other findings, the data indicate that higher performers were found to leave their organization voluntarily even when the relevant unemployment rate was relatively high. In other words, internal factors such as pay growth over time are more salient to high performers than external labor market conditions. The good news for employers is that these internal factors are somewhat controllable.
For information about the study’s other findings and to learn what you can do to retain high performers, I invite you to read my article What You Don’t Know about Retaining High Performers Can Hurt You. And let me know what you think!
© 2010 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.
