With powerful motivators like personal growth aspirations, opportunities for career acceleration and clear financial upside, Generation Z (born after 1995) is projected to job hop 10-15 times during a typical 45+-year career span. Meanwhile, continual cycles of organizational turnover have led to lower overall company loyalty, a decline in employee tenure, and shorter institutional lifespans. For some companies, rapid growth during the last three years collided with a sudden market downturn, forcing even the most conscientious to propose layoffs. Today, many organizations also find themselves with a new layer of people responsibility: preparing them for jobs the world hasn’t even yet imagined. As employees already know, if they’re not getting upskilled or reskilled, they’ll soon be obsolete–along with their employers.It’s no surprise, then, that the top reason cited by a recent McKinsey report for changing jobs is a lack of development opportunity. If companies aren’t proactively growing their talent, much less preparing their organizations for an imminent future, employee departures are all but guaranteed. But whether career transitions are voluntary, spurred by predictable attrition and hiring cycles, or necessitated by once-in-a-generation pandemics, the ramifications of continual employee turnover are real and costly for organizations and not without risk for individuals.
