More than a quarter of workers are on the hunt for a new job

Dive Brief:

One to two years is the right length of time to stay in a job before looking for another, half of the respondents in a new survey from Accounting Principals and Ajilon said. In a joint poll of 1,000 professionals in sales and management, the firms found that a quarter of respondents are actively looking for new job opportunities and 55% are passively open to new opportunities.
Survey results showed that money remains a strong motivator for employees; 43% of respondents said they would leave their current jobs for another that paid better. Young workers aged 18 to 25 were more likely to give this response than older workers.
More than half of the respondents (54%) said their main reason for staying on the job is their loyalty to their coworkers, team, boss or company, the survey said. A third of respondents said their reason for leaving their job was a bad boss or manager. A bad boss rang in as the second highest reason for leaving a job, just under unsatisfactory pay.

Dive Insight:

Young employees have blown away the notion that loyalty and commitment to a company mean staying in one job for five years or more. In fact, 64% of professionals said they think job hopping actually helps their careers, according to a report from Robert Half. This makes keeping a company's retention rates high not only a challenge, but also a priority, experts say.

But this doesn't mean that employers and recruiters should automatically nix job seekers whose resumes show a few shifts in employment. As shorter tenures grow in popularity, a red flag no longer rises when a job hopper sends in an application, Dawn Hirsch, chief human resources officer at HireRight, previously told HR Dive. With regard to job hopping and breaks in service "there's a lot more acceptance and tolerance," she said.

Research shows employers may want to focus on enticing their employees to stay by becoming employers of choice. For the 65 million Americans saddled with time- and energy-consuming caregiving responsibilities, companies boasting competitive benefits packages geared toward caregivers will be coveted and cherished job opportunities. Other employers are offering other kinds of impactful benefits, like Discover's tuition-paying College Commitment program. And employers that prioritize career development initiatives will capture millennial employees especially, according to recent research.

But cash is also still king. The owner of a California Chick-fil-A recently upped his employees' wages to $17 and $18 per hour to reduce turnover, showing that competitive wages, too, can lock down good workers.