How Intent To Leave Jobs Does Not Vary Strikingly Across Generations?

Millenials are known to have gained notoriety for job-switching. Unattached to organisations, individuals from this age, born between 1980 and 1996 - - are said to switch openly from one organization to another, more so than any other other generation.

Today’s Job Scenario

According to Gallup report on the millennial generation, " 21% of millennials say they've changed jobs within the past year, which is more than three times the number of non-millennials who report the same. Gallup estimates that millennial turnover costs the U.S. economy $30.5 billion annually."

Also, millenials show less eagerness to remain in their ongoing position. Half of the Millenials- - contrasted and 60% of non-millenials - - emphatically concur that they intend to be working at their organization one year from now. For organizations, this recommends that portion of their millennial labor force doesn't see a future with them.

Sudeep Ralhan, CHRO, Upstox too supports the statement by remarking that, “While the talent market is competitive for all, there are variations in how people react and that's where generational differences also come in. Essentially, all people seek the same - a sense of belonging, meaning, fair pay & growth - but the relative importance does change. 

Since many millennials don't plan on staying in their jobs for long, it makes sense that they are hunting for new positions. Gallup found that 60% of millennials say they are open to a different job opportunity -- 15 percentage points higher than the percentage of non-millennial workers who say the same. Millennials are also the most willing to act on better opportunities: 36% report that they will look for a job with a different organization in the next 12 months if the job market improves, compared with 21% of non-millennials who say the same.

Millennials' Engagement Lower Than That of Other Generations

The case is such that millennials are up at taking challenging roles, while the older working generation believes in sticking with an organisation for long, proving their loyalty to their employer. 

Also, “job switch is really driven by demand-supply gap with respect to particular skill sets. Very large deficit of certain skill sets in market like data science, analytics, digital, product developers etc are driving this phenomena. This is more prominent in Gen Z and less in older generations,” explains Prem Singh, CHRO, JK Organisation.

But, according to a recent research by Happiness.in, “contrary to popular belief, we found that surprisingly, the differences in their intent to leave jobs were not significant across generations. The numbers may have been slightly higher for Millenials and Gen Z owing to the fact that they still have much longer to go in their professional careers than Gen X. So, if their current workplaces don’t seem thriving and fulfilling enough to them in terms of the culture and opportunities to grow and learn, they are easier to start inclining towards leaving their job and start over because they know they can afford to.”

There is also an evident possibility of a scenario where millennials actually don't want to switch jobs, but their companies aren't giving them compelling reasons to stay. When millenials see what seems, by all accounts, to be a better opportunity, they have each impetus to take it. While millennials can appear to be needing to an ever increasing extent, actually they simply need a task that feels advantageous - - and they will continue to look until they track down it.