Men and women will switch jobs for higher pay but retaining each group requires different perks

Employers right now may have the upper hand when it comes to hiring, but many employees are still eyeing the exit. That means that business leaders and HR managers still have to think hard about ways to engage their workforces—but not every group is motivated by the same perks. 

Overall, about 54% of employees have no plans to leave their current company or role in 2024—a slight uptick from 52% in 2023, according to a new report from Alight, a consulting technology company. But the top motivators to stay are different for men and women. Around 21% of women rank satisfaction with their work-life flexibility as the main reason they’re sticking around. Meanwhile, only 10% of men surveyed said the same. Yet 13% of both women and men listed job or company stability as their main motivator, signaling security is a priority all around.

“It’s important to understand your retention and attraction efforts as an employer should be different. It’s not one-size-fits-all,” Laine Thomas Conway, VP of community strategy at Alight, tells Fortune. 

When it comes to what would make a worker consider a new job with another company, women and men are generally in agreement: higher pay. But the topic is even more important for women, with around 46% ranking higher wages as the primary reason they would leave, compared to 39% of men, according to the report. 

“When we’re looking at job stability and jumping for pay, it’s really important to know that women feel much more challenged about their budgets and savings, and that they definitely need more help,” Thomas Conway says. “Employers [need to] make sure that they are promoting the tools that are going to make women feel more confident in their futures, in their day-to-day budgeting, and how they are navigating the world.”

Emma Burleigh
emma.burleigh@fortune.com

Today’s edition was curated by Brit Morse.

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