Top 10 Reasons Why Employees Leave Their Jobs

Does it feel like you’ve been hosting a lot of goodbye lunches lately? And is there always a list of positions you’re trying to backfill? While that can feel discouraging, at least know you aren’t alone—nearly half of employees have considered leaving their jobs in 2024. This is more than the Great Resignation of 2022.

At the peak of the Great Resignation, 4.5 million workers were quitting their jobs each month. That’s about 3% of the US workforce at the time. And turnover isn’t just a problem in theory; high employee turnover leads to increased costs for your organization and lowered staff morale.

Below, we’lll explore the typical reasons for leaving a job to help you gain an understanding of what can improve retention at your organization. Find out how BambooHR tools can help you prioritize employee experience.

Why Do Good Employees Leave Their Jobs?

Good employees leave for many reasons—from compensation to culture. Sometimes these things are circumstantial and related to personal reasons, separate from the business. But in many cases, employee reasons for leaving a job could have been avoided by the workplace.

1. Looking for a Higher Salary

The state of the US economy was a hot topic in 2024, so it’s no wonder our most recent data shows nearly half of all job seekers are doing so because they don’t make enough money. If your staff feel they’re being underpaid, it won’t be long before they start looking for another job, even if they’re not jumping ship yet. In fact,‌ 73% of employees admitted they would think about leaving their current role for a higher salary.

It’s important to offer a salary that not only matches your employee’s value, but one that’s competitive within the market. The last thing you want is your staff looking to your competitors because of their higher compensation packages.

How to Prevent Employees from Leaving for a Higher Salary

You can manage the complexity of compensation through open and transparent communication with your workforce. Keep an eye on market trends and offer a salary that matches expectations and addresses dissatisfaction with workers' current compensation.

2. Bad Managers

Don’t let a bad boss be the reason good employees leave. Having a supportive manager can make or break the employee experience. It’s the difference between someone feeling comfortable and supported at work—or not.

How to Prevent Employees Leaving Due to Bad Managers

If you notice there’s one team at the company that has an unusually high turnover rate, you might consider giving the boss a refresh on their manager training.

A great manager can be a fantastic asset to motivate and engage employees with the work they’re doing and keep them excited about your organization. Research from Gallup revealed that 80% of employees who received meaningful feedback from their managers in the last week are fully engaged. In fact, this boost from feedback is a more important factor in employee engagement than days in the office.

3. Lack of Growth Opportunity

Sometimes the only way to move up the ladder is by changing companies. As much as someone loves your company, if the management position they want isn’t currently available at your organization, they may see it as a reason to leave the job. Employees also need to be able to grow their skills, and good employers offer continued education and ongoing employee training.

How to Prevent Employees Leaving from Lack of Growth

Encourage your managers to seek communication and transparency from employees about career goals. This can help to identify opportunities within your organization to advance positions and transfer them to different departments through internal hiring.

4. Burnout

Squeezing every bit of time and effort out of your employees won’t have them wanting to stay with your company, and certainly won’t result in their best work. Employee burnout is a big problem. According to Gallup, three in four US employees experience feeling burnout, and one in four report feeling burnout “very often” or “always.”

How to Prevent Employees from Leaving Due to Burnout

Give your employees a break! Offer a generous but realistic amount of paid time off (PTO) to your employees and encourage them to actually use it. Pew research finds that US workers often take less PTO than they could. One way to encourage your employees to unplug and take advantage of time away is to incentivize them to take PTO.

But don’t forget that burnout can also be a symptom of unrealistic work expectations or unhealthy work habits, especially on remote teams. It’s important to manage remote teams effectively and encourage remote employees to disconnect at the end of the day.

5. No Recognition

When was the last time you told your employees thank you? If you can’t remember, you might want to do something about that.

According to McKinsey, nonfinancial recognition drives 55% of employee engagement. This means that feedback and praise are a substantial driver of employee experience. ‌So if you’re not offering it, you may find this gives your employees another reason to leave their jobs.

How to Stop Employees Leaving Due to Lack of Recognition

Here are some of the top recognition perks employees request:

• Monetary bonus
• Gift card
• Extra vacation days
• Verbal recognition
• Premium reserved parking space

Feel free to get creative with what you choose to offer employees. Just be sure they know they are valued and that you recognize the incredible work they’re doing.

6. Workplace Loneliness

We spend 40 hours (often more) at the office each week, so an employee feeling lonely may be a big reason for leaving. Having an office bestie has been shown to increase employee engagement and happiness at work.

A lack of workplace connection can be particularly apparent with remote workers. Working from home can be isolating and lead to loneliness.

How to Avoid Employees Leaving Due to Loneliness

While you can’t force anyone to be friends, you can create opportunities for friendships to form. It could be as simple as planning team socials, introducing a buddy system, or setting team-building activities. Pay extra attention to your remote workers and make an effort to reach out and check in. Consider if there’s anything you can do to help them feel more connected.

On the writing team at BambooHR, we start our Monday meetings discussing our weekends. It gives everyone a chance to feel more connected beyond what’s on our calendars for the week and starts the meeting off on a friendly note.

7. Wrong Culture Fit

Many reasons for leaving a job really boil down to company culture. No one wants to work at a company with a toxic culture, so if your company is headed down the wrong path, be sure to correct it.

How to Prevent Employees Leaving Due to Wrong Culture Fit

Sometimes the problem isn’t your culture, but how your employee fits with your culture. Do your best during the interview process to make sure anyone you hire is a good culture fit for your company, meaning they understand, can promote, and will buy into your organization’s mission, vision, and values. It’s also important to build company culture into your new hires’ onboarding.

8. Feeling Uninspired

If your employee is no longer feeling satisfied with their day-to-day role, they may decide to quit. Whether the line of work is getting a bit stale, or times are changing, sometimes people like to find a new role for a new boost of inspiration. Feeling uninspired is an acceptable reason for leaving a job—and you should prepare for it as an employer.

How to Stop Your Workforce from Leaving If They Feel Uninspired

Try to encourage open and transparent conversations with your workforce. If you sense they’re feeling unmotivated or not challenged in their current role you may be able to suggest slight changes to their day-to-day or even new pathways for them to explore—but still within your organization.

It may also help to regularly realign your staff with your company mission, so they can visualize where their work fits in to the bigger picture.

9. Seeking a Different Work Environment

Each company has a unique work environment—whether that’s the physical workplace or company culture and style. It could even be as simple as in-office working, hybrid flexibility, or fully remote positions.

How to Stop Employees Leaving for Different Work Environments

Sometimes, your company just isn’t the right fit anymore—and there isn’t anything in your power to change that. But offering flexibility can go a long way in reducing reasons to leave your company. Offering a change in hours, hybrid working opportunities, or more flexibility to accommodate your employee’s preferred work environment may help.

10. Change in Personal Life

Your employee’s personal life may have some factor in their reasons for leaving work. For example, if their personal commitments have changed and they need more time off than you can provide, they may look elsewhere for an employer that can better match their needs. Similarly, if they’ve moved house, they may be too far to continue to commute to their current place of work.

How to Stop Employees Leaving Due to Changes in Their Personal Life

Flexibility is key. Try having open conversations with your employees and come to a middle ground on what you could offer to make any personal transition easier to manage along with work.

Why Is It Helpful to Know the Reasons Your Employees Leave?

It’s important to know why your staff are leaving, so you can prevent it from happening for the same reasons again. A high amount of employee turnover can hurt a business—financially and reputationally. Not only does hiring new employees cost time and effort—the average cost of a new hire in the US is $4,700— but a constant turnover of staff can also lower existing workers’ morale.

What Are Signs of an Unhappy Employee?

According to Gallup, 60% of employees are emotionally detached at work and 19% are miserable. Signs of an unhappy employee include declining productivity, lack of engagement, and an increase in errors. They may also spend time having distressed conversations, talking negatively about current projects or even coworkers.

Avoid High Employee Turnover

Replacing an employee is expensive, so it’s worth investing your time in conducting exit interviews and tracking employees’ reasons for leaving. You might start seeing patterns and be able to slow down employee exits.

Sometimes it has nothing to do with your organization’s practices; it’s just time for the employee to move on. But when you can, do your best to make your company a place where star employees want to stay. Find out how to manage employee turnover effectively with BambooHR.