I was reading the statistics column in the Good Weekend a few weeks ago and came across a number that I thought absolutely incredulous!. So I wrote to Professor John Croucher Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management who compiles the numbers and asked “where did this number come from?”

He had written that ?Proportion of surveyed Australian workers who said they intended to find a new job in 2006: 70 per cent.?

His answer came back to me “The figure of 70% was uncovered at the end of last year by the Australian firm Talent 2 (basically a headhunting firm) who took a sample of 1200 people. This was subsequently written up and quoted in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 31 December 2005.”

This is a huge and scary number…Alarming!!. How productive can the workforce be if so many are looking to change jobs? Is employee engagement that low…or are generation Y just so into a ‘better’ life is always somewhere else. Or is it that employers are just not recognising their people?

From my previous blog entries you will know that the Gallup figure quoted is that 42% of people who are disengaged with an organisation will leave within 12 months.

Our own figures from the Pleasure Survey conducted in Spring 2004 found that 30% of people whilst initially happy where currently seeking a job elsewhere.

No matter which way you look at it. This would be the single source of increased productivity and profitability for any organisation – getting the team focussed on the job at hand and getting them engaged.

I often declare when speaking to groups my commitment to employee engagement. “What difference could we make to the economy if we just moved these engagement figures by 1%!? I have a new sense of urgency in this quest.