AI Stops Employees from Quitting and Stay Longer

According to McKinsey & Company the top 3 reasons why employees quit are:

1. Lack of career development and advancement
2. Inadequate total compensation
3. Uncaring and uninspiring leaders

Since McKinsey published its “Quit” research much has been written about the top reasons why employees quit but not much has been written about how AI can stop employees from quitting and stay longer. Yes, employees stay longer because of AI. The goal of this article is to demonstrate how.

1.????? Lack of career development and advancement

AI stops employees from quitting because it visualizes for employee’s career paths towards "Dream roles". Yes, employees simply look across a landscape of possible dream moves inside or, outside of the company, which is counter intuitive I know, but by offering career options outside of the company employees actually stay longer, more on this below. When an employee chooses a “Dream role” such as “Data Scientist” or “Astronaut” and by inputting their “Now” role say, “Data Analyst”, the AI builds for the employee a career pathway towards their "Dream role".

A “Dream role" Career Pathway looks like this…

The no:1 reason (+5% pts over any other reason) why employees quit is because of a lack of career development and advancement. Now AI builds for employee’s pathways advancing careers towards "Dream Roles" which makes employees stay longer.

But there’s more…

The AI is so smart it will allow employees to compare different pathways towards different "Dream roles" based on transferable skills, yes based on transferable skills. Based on knowing the skills from an employee’s “Now role” the AI will show how an employee can accumulate skills with their next move, then the next move and so on towards developing as many of the skills necessary to best prepare for their “Dream role”. The more transferable skills accumulated the better prepared the employee will be for their dream move, see picture 2 below.

But here’s what’s so, so smart. The AI enables employees to compare one potential career pathway vs. another to see which pathway enables them to develop the most transferable skills to best prepare themselves for Dream role option 1 vs. Dream role option 2.

Not only will the AI build the pathway, but it will also identify open positions for each move along the pathway and enable employees to apply for these positions both inside and outside the company. It turns out according to MIT Management and a McKinsey study, companies that are open about external career pathways can build trust with their employees. Transparency creates a positive work environment where employees feel valued and supported, increasing loyalty and retention.

Implementing AI to manage career development and advancement is a top reason why employees stay longer, see picture 3. Employees with access to self-service career mobility tools are more likely to stay with their current employer, as they can explore and plan their career paths efficiently inside or outside of the organization.

Don’t just take my word for it, here are two statistics from research carried out by Cornerstone and Lighthouse. A whopping 61% of employees are likely to "Quit" if they don't know about opportunities to advance their careers, Whoa!

• 73% of employees want to know about career opportunities inside the organization.
• 61% of employees who don’t know about career opportunities are likely to quit.

2.????? Inadequate total compensation

AI stops employees from quitting because it addresses the no:2 reason why employees quit and that’s because of inadequate total compensation. Employees believe their salaries don’t match their skills and experience or the market rate for their role.

In the period of “The Great Resignation” because of wages inflation, not meeting “the market rate” was a huge issue but times have changed, we are now in the period of the “Big Stay” and employees are interested in learning about opportunities to expand their skill sets and grow within their current job role and job family.

AI powers job role growth for employees based on skills and experience which is exactly the view that employees want, especially in technical roles. Let’s use the DevOps role as an example. A DevOps growth model including skills and experience levels, mapped to pay, and performance generated by AI looks like this:

Consider the data AI is generating here; Skill levels, skill descriptions, pay/promotion levels, promotion criteria and metrics and even expected pay ranges. AI does it all!

The game changer here for CPO and L&D Leaders is that AI generates the growth model, see picture 4, for every role in the company. The model can be shared with managers to support performance and development reviews.

Why not share it with the employees themselves such that when they click on a career pathway job the table of data shows up for them, see picture 5 below. The more open employers are about career growth and advancement the more trust can be built with employees, the less likely employees will quit and the longer they will stay.

But there’s more, for every role the AI generates a profile of the most important skills for that role and for each skill level so it’s easy for employees to see the skills required to master to move to the next skill level, see picture 6, showing DevOps skills.

The AI is so smart that it categorizes all the skills and prioritizes the skills, listing the most important skills at the top so making it easy for employees to focus on developing the skills that have the biggest impact on success in role or for any role level ?

So now we have career pathways with skill profiles for every skill level mapped with performance and pay. This means that finally we can map growth in role with skill and experiences development, see picture 7 below.

But it gets better, AI is the technology that never stops giving because employees can easily prioritize the most important skills to focus on developing simply by dragging and dropping skills onto their priorities list, see picture 8 below.? ?

And so, the gravy chain of giving continues because the AI will generate a personalized learning management system (LMS) based on the skills prioritized, see picture 9 below. CPO’s & L&D leaders don’t need to continue to invest in LMS systems because the AI becomes the LMS. That’s an audacious statement to make isn’t it, but just look at picture 9 below and see how the AI maps skills prioritized with learning.

Ok, we are getting a little off track here, so let’s get back on point. This section was all about inadequate compensation, being the no:2 reason why employees quit. So, AI delivers a skill, performance, promotions and pay model for every role and for every skill level which addresses the no:1 reason why employees cite inadequate pay as a top reason for why they quit, because salaries do not map with their skill and experience levels.

Now every employee gets to see the skill levels, the skills required for every level, the performance criteria and the expected pay levels. There’s no mystery, it’s visible for every employee because of AI.

It gets better because the AI maps learning to every skill level and the priority skills to be mastered at every level and based on skills prioritized the AI builds a “Personalized Learning Management System (PLMS)” for every employee demonstrating that the company cares about learning.

Implementing AI technology that maps skills with performance, promotion, pay and learning is a top reason why employees stay, see picture 10. Employees who set career pathways aligned with skills and skill levels are 4x more likely to engage with learning than those employees that don’t according to the LinkedIn workplace report 2024 and companies with strong learning cultures see higher rates of retention.

3.????? Uncaring and uninspiring leaders

AI stops employees from quitting because it addresses the no:3 reason why employees quit and that’s because of uncaring managers. Quite literally employees quit because their manager is uncaring, shows little appetite to coach and make suggestions about career and skills development. ?

Let’s start with the “North Star”, the best of the best. One of the top company’s in the world for manager care according to a MIT Sloan report is Amsted Industries. Every employee at Amsted gets two types of discussions, a performance in role discussion with their manager and a development review and mentoring process led by a senior manager who is a peer to the employees’ manager, not in their management chain, wow!

Employees get to present their career pathway and skills plan and share the progress they are making towards achieving their stated development goals. The key is that managers are evaluated both on the performance and development of employees. Based on listening to employee’s development plans and progress managers can make suggestions regarding career opportunities, skill priorities and on-the-job experiences that will be most helpful to developing skills including shadowing and stretch projects. Employees can choose to “Accept or Reject” the suggestions.

You can think of this process as a performance and development process, but I think of it as a “Caring” process. It’s the process through which managers demonstrate that the company cares about employees’ career and skill development.

But what has this got to do with AI?

AI powers the “Care” process for managers and employees. AI enables employees to build career pathways towards "Dream roles", identify and prioritize skills for development and based on these priorities build a "Skill Plan" that they can share with managers just like the Amsted process documented above. But that’s not all AI can do because managers can engage in the process and because of AI they can make suggestions about possible career pathway options and skill development priorities, see picture 11 below.

Employees receive suggestions made by managers regarding career moves and skills to prioritize, they show up in their career pathways, see picture 12 below. Employees can choose to “Accept or Reject” these suggestions. The blockbuster news here is this demonstrates to employees that managers care about careers. “Can I share a suggestion” can be a completely groundbreaking moment for an employee. According to the MIT Sloan research 67% of employees said they want to advance their careers but 49% said a lack of good career advice has hurt their job trajectory.

The other consideration here is how the sharing of career pathways both inside and outside of the company acts as an early warning system. If employees are actively looking at building a career outside of the company, proactively mangers can ask the question “How can we craft your Dream Career here, so you stay with us?”

Implementing AI technology that enables managers to make career and skill suggestions is a top reason why employees stay, see picture 13. Even in the “Great Recession” when employees were voluntarily quitting their jobs on masse, Microsoft recognized the importance of managers stepping-in and being much more active in helping employees plan their careers. “How satisfied are you that your manager cares about your career” was an employee satisfaction pulse survey question. A whopping 83% of employees said, “Satisfied or very satisfied” at the height of the pandemic.

Summary:

The purpose of this article was to show how AI can stop employees from quitting and stay longer. Picture 13 brings everything together and visualizes the reasons why and how AI stops employees from quitting, lets employees dream and stay longer. They say love is blind but maybe just maybe AI can make employees fall in love and stay forever.

The three reasons why AI makes employees stay longer:

1. AI gives employees access to self-service career mobility tools which means they are more likely to stay with their current employer, as they can explore and plan their career paths efficiently inside or outside of the organization.
2. AI gives employees visibility to skill levels, the skills required at every level, the performance criteria and the expected pay levels. There’s no mystery, transparency builds trust and because of this employees are 4x more likely to engage in learning and stay longer.
3. AI enables managers to make career and skill suggestions which demonstrates to employees that the company cares about careers and development. “Can I share a suggestion” can be groundbreaking for 67% of employees that want to advance their careers and stay longer.

Before I sign-off I see a bigger picture reason why AI will make employees stay longer. In the aftermath of the Great Recession because of economic turmoil employees became more risk-averse, seeking stability and long-term security. This shift to prolonged commitments within companies has become known as the Big Stay. ?But the winds of change are knocking on our door again. A new era is whistling towards us and it’s not a westerly breeze it’s a tsunami called “AI”. According to McKinsey companies that fail to embrace AI risk an employee-led uprising, driven by dissatisfaction and a sense of being undervalued and underprepared for the AI-driven future. Companies that proactively create an AI Odyssey for their workforce that harnesses the transformative power of AI to redefine career pathways, enhance employee engagement, and drive continuous development will attract and retain top talent and become the hi performing companies of tomorrow.

Thanks for reading, Alan.

All the pictures in this article illustrate capabilities in the reaching4.ai career playground powered by OpenAI ChatGPT4.o. More information can be found at reaching4.ai

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