Prepare Now Or Lose Your Best Employees Soon

13 August 2009:

Corporate leaders, brace yourselves. Before long, a resume tsunami may begin cascading from your companies. Your task: Act now to prevent a flood of high-performing employees from seizing the opportunity to trade in their current jobs for another once the economy improves.

With layoffs dominating the headlines and companies struggling to survive, it seems hard to imagine a time when one of the biggest problems facing senior executives will be retaining and replacing key talent. But the resume tsunami is already building. In a May 2009 global survey of 319 senior executives conducted for Deloitte by Forbes Insights, 65% reported they were highly or very highly concerned that high-potential talent and leadership would leave once the economy turns. And 52% of surveyed executives predicted an increase in voluntary turnover at their companies once the recession ends, four times the number expecting a decrease.

Recent research by Deloitte found a strong positive correlation between consumer confidence and voluntary turnover rates (see chart) and a negative correlation between unemployment rates and voluntary turnover rates. In other words, as economic fears recede, voluntary turnover rises.