It's not easy to retain top ecommerce talent.
Just 5% of ecommerce professionals remain in their jobs for more than 5 years, while the majority move from year to year. In our 2014 and 2015 ecommerce salary surveys, over 45% of our respondents had only been in their current role for one year or less.
So, why are people changing jobs so much? Is retaining top talent impossible in this day and age? We can’t give you all of the answers, but we can shed some light on career essentials and what you can do to retain top ecommerce talent.
In our recent industry study, we discovered 3 key factors (besides salary) that ecommerce heroes deemed as ‘essential’ in a role.
Feeling appreciated and respected topped the poll for the second year running, with 100% of respondents listing it as 'the top essential'. What does this tell us? Simply that, while a great salary is vital, throwing money at team members won't keep them from looking - or going - elsewhere.
Now, this essential might seem like a no-brainer, but it's incredibly difficult to deliver. Everyone has their own interpretation of what feeling appreciated and respected means and it can be affected by everything from interdepartmental politics and mismatched internal goals to levels of sensitivity and personal beliefs.
So, when considering this essential, it's definitely worth:
88% of our respondents listed 'opportunity to progress' as an essential. Team members who feel like they're going nowhere aren't going to be happy; add to this feelings of unappreciation and disrespect and they'll no doubt start looking for opportunities elsewhere.
It's not always possible to offer team members promotions, especially when you're working in a startup, but there are plenty of ways to ensure that they don't develop that 'dead-end feeling'.
As a manager, you can:
We've combined our salary survey findings for 'People', 'manager' and 'culture' as they're all so closely aligned. And - let's not forget - essentials 1 and 2 depend on all of them.
It's no secret: ecommerce professionals want to work with amazing people. They want great managers who have vision and can ensure that essentials 1 and 2 are a given within the workplace. And they want to feel as though they belong, that they can be themselves, and that they're growing as a person.
Does your company deliver all of these employee retention essentials?
Download our latest salary survey report