Gen Y High Turnover Rate

I feel that Drucker's thoughts on how employees should be managed as volunteers is extremely important for the Gen-Y generation.  It seems that it is the norm for young educated employees to leave their jobs after only a few years.  I graduated just 3 years ago, and plenty of my classmates have already had multiple jobs where they have always left their job for another.  I found an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal on how Gen-Y workers may be hurting themselves with this trend.  They found that it costs companies 15,000 to 25,000 dollars to replace Gen-Y employees when they leave the company (Marte).  And this cost can give negotiating power to the employee to reward them for staying with the company.   

One consulting firm surveyed its workforce to figure out why the younger employees were leaving after a short duration while older employees stayed loyal.  They found several things to change in order to retain more employees.  Mainly, they were trying to maintain the satisfaction of the employees.  Many companies have started using mentoring programs and providing feedback on job performance more (Marte).    Drucker mentions the success of nonprofits and explains volunteers are assigned both a mentor and a supervisor with whom they work out their performance goals (Drucker, 48).  These companies are adding these mentoring programs and performances goals and evaluations just as the successful nonprofits in order to give their employees more purpose and thus more satisfaction in the job.

I am a Gen Y employee and when it is time for performance evaluations and I am excited about it and I really get enjoyment about out of the process.  The older generations, in general, tend to think it is a big waste of time.  Our company has a mentoring program for new hires, but it is week and unstructured.  I really do think that a more structured and involved mentoring program could help with Gen Y retainment, helping more employees to believe in the organizations purpose.

There are many factors for the high turnover rate of Gen Y employees, but employers should look to volunteer organizations as examples to keep employee satisfaction high.  It would be beneficial to the businesses to retain their employees.



Marte, Jonnelle.  "How Gen Y workers miss out on money, perks" Market Watch.  The Wall Street Journal.  Aug 15, 2013.  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-gen-y-workers-miss-out-on-money-perks-2013-08-14

Drucker, Peter F. (2001). The Essential Drucker. New York, NY: HarperCollins