Most employers assume people leave for more money. Most of the time, that’s not really what’s going on — it’s just the easiest reason to give on the way out. As a recruiter, I get to hear the version candidates don’t always say to their current employer, and it tells a very different story.
What people actually tell me
When I ask a candidate why they’re looking, “the salary” comes up — but it’s rarely the reason on its own. Far more often, it’s one or more of these:
- Their manager. Not the company, not the role — the day-to-day relationship with the person they report to. A bad manager will push out a good employee faster than almost anything else.
- No visible path forward. People can tolerate a lot if they can see where it’s leading. Take that away and even a comfortable job starts to feel like a dead end.
- Feeling replaceable. Employees who never hear that their work matters start to believe it doesn’t — and start looking somewhere it will.
- Rigid working patterns. Once someone has experienced flexibility elsewhere, or even just heard about it from friends, going back to rigid 9-to-5 with no give in it becomes much harder to accept.
- A pay rise that never quite catches up. This is where money does matter — not as the headline reason, but as the final straw once everything else has already worn thin
Retention isn’t a counteroffer problem
When a good employee hands in their notice, the instinctive response is often a counteroffer. In my experience, it rarely works long-term. If someone has got to the point of accepting another job, the reasons that pushed them there are almost never solved by a number on a payslip — and most who accept a counteroffer end up leaving within the year anyway, once the underlying issue resurfaces.
The employers who retain their best people well aren’t the ones who react fastest when someone hands in their notice. They’re the ones having the conversations — about progression, workload, flexibility, recognition — long before anyone gets to that point.
What good retention actually looks like
It’s rarely one big gesture. It’s regular, honest conversations about where someone stands and where they’re headed. It’s a manager who notices when someone’s stretched too thin. It’s flexibility that’s real, not just written in the handbook. And it’s making sure people hear, plainly, when they’ve done good work — not just when something’s gone wrong.
None of that costs much. It just takes attention, and it has to happen consistently, not only at appraisal time once a year.
If you’re losing good people and can’t quite work out why, it’s often worth an outside conversation — I’m always happy to talk it through.