Contributed by Pamela Wasley, CEO

According to a North American poll of 900 workers done by Right Management (ManPower Group), 83% of employees plan on pursuing new positions in 2014. And only five percent said they intended on staying in their current position. This should be a wake-up call to employers that you not only have to work hard at finding the right talent but you must also engage your employees in order to retain them.

The poll has revealed similar findings each year since its inception in 2009. Certainly few companies are experiencing an 80%+ turnover in staff, but the point of the poll is clear. At any given time, most of a company’s workers are dissatisfied, unengaged, and thinking hard about leaving.

Some of the ways you can effectively engage your employees include:

1. Develop a structured on-boarding program for new employees. Don’t just hire them and then let them fend for themselves. Make them feel like part of the team right away.
2. Invest in your employees by re-skilling them and encouraging life-long schooling and training. Life-long learning is becoming important to employees today as they continue to refine their skills to keep up with the areas in demand.
3. Engage your employees and empower them with social technology and analytics that will benefit them with significant competitive differentiation and market leadership. Don’t shy away from technology; use it to benefit the employee as well as the company. Remember that by 2025, 75% of the workforce will be Millennials who have grown up using technology in their everyday lives.
4. Use state-of-the-art technology to track employee performance, satisfaction and loyalty.

If you are not aligning investment dollars in employment engagement with retention and business goals then expect to lose employees in the coming years.