Why is there so much turnover in development?

So, this is a multi-part posting.  There is no way to answer this in one listing.  As I keep reading my responses and talking to people in the field, this could be the only question we every answer!!  But, I’ll give it a try today and we’ll keep working at it with your input.

This is probably the question I get asked more frequently than any other question.  It is also one of the hardest to answer, because so many factors could be happening.

Initial questions from me:
Have you had a lot of turnover in your organization or are you just seeing it in the sector?  How frequent is the change, which positions, are you observing similar or different organizations?

Then, what do you think the standard/average length of time in any position is?  Does that vary by sector, by type of role, by size or organization?

Right now, people change jobs every 4-4.3 years or more (January 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics). More interesting for our purposes, the younger the employee, the more frequent the turnover—down to 2.3 years for 25-34 years of age.  People move for more money, more time (closer to home, work from home, better staff, etc.), more collegial work environment, less stress, opportunity to expand new skills, restlessness, and more. 

So, the question, one more time:  “I experience frequent turnover in the Director of Development role in my organization.  What’s wrong with development people?”

My response:
1. What do you consider frequent?
2. What did you learn from the exit interview? (Did you do an exit interview?)
3. What are you comparing longevity to:  the previous person, another organization, your own time at the org. or something else?
4. What have you done to prevent future turnover?

We can learn a lot from asking the person in the role and figuring out, for this person, what frequent means and whether expectations are matching with reality.

Read the other entries of this series: Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.