As economy improves, top talent looking for new positions, ready to move on

Kristen Quagliozzi spends most days hunting down talented managers and executives, and then trying to persuade them to jump ship and join another company.
For the past year or two, her job has been frustrating.
Only one out of every 10 candidates would talk to her when she cold-called at their office desk or home. The unfriendly economic climate and skyrocketing unemployment had workers hunkering down, deciding it was safest to stay put.
“Individuals weren’t interested in speaking with me at all,” said Quagliozzi, a recruiter for South Kingstown-based executive search firm O’Neill Consulting Group LLC. “The phrase ‘Last one in, first one out’ was ringing in their ears.
But now as the job market shows some glimmers of improvement, the reluctance to change jobs has faded.
As many as half the people to whom Quagliozzi reaches out now are willing at least to talk about new job opportunities, if not raring to move on.
While it’s an encouraging sign of improved confidence in the economy, the new-found willingness of some to leave their jobs might become a problem for employers, particularly in the wake of layoffs, increased workloads and pay freezes.
Pent-up frustration in the workplace could make retaining a company’s most talented workers difficult as the employment picture brightens.
Already, the number of workers nationwide quitting their jobs exceeded those laid off or fired in February, March and April for the first time since November 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Employers “should be very concerned, and they are, about retaining the top talent,” said S. Thomas Wharton, president and CEO of the Warwick branch of OI Partners-Lifocus, a Nashville, Tenn.-based human resources consulting firm. “If things aren’t going well, or [star workers] feel they’re not being compensated as they should, they’re the ones who are looking elsewhere in this now somewhat improved job market.”
A recent OI Partners survey of 262 employers across the country showed that nearly two-thirds are fretting that they may lose managers in a better job market. Wharton said the fears are already becoming reality in some cases. One of Wharton’s local clients recently informed him that it had been preparing for a round of layoffs when several key employees who were not part of job-reduction plans decided to accept job offers elsewhere.
“You get the rumblings that there’s going to be a reorganization or a downsizing, or there are frustrations from the last three years of companies eliminating jobs – some of the talent has decided to move on instead,” Wharton said. “People are out there looking [for a new job], and today there are more companies out there looking to bring in talent.”
“Those employers who have had the just-be-happy-you-have-a-job attitude – that doesn’t float anymore,” he added.
Still, it’s not like there’s an overabundance of jobs locally. The unemployment rate in Rhode Island stood at 12 percent in June, fourth-highest in the nation, although the state did not gain or lose a job for the month after adding 3,200 jobs in May.
Experts say geographic areas have grown less important in a job search, particularly because of the Internet Age.
There are more ways to find jobs, even those far from Rhode Island, with the proliferation of social-networking sites and online job boards. And there are plenty of recruiters on the prowl.
Prospects “had stopped talking to us,” said Kevin O’Neill, president of O’Neill Consulting. “They were choosing the devil they knew versus the devil they didn’t. … But many companies didn’t invest in HR, they didn’t fill open jobs, some are sitting on cash. Now there’s going to be a response.”
Lots of people are poised to leave their jobs, according to two polls conducted in recent months.
A report from staffing agency Robert Half International said 40 percent of the 1,453 employees it polled are “more inclined today to look for new opportunities outside their firms.”
And last November a survey of 900 workers nationwide by Right Management, an employment consulting division of Manpower Inc., found that 60 percent intended to leave as the economy improved and another 20 percent said they might leave and have already started networking. The discontent isn’t necessarily about lack of compensation. A new Society for Human Resource Management poll of a sampling of employees says job security, benefits and career opportunities ranked higher than pay as important to job satisfaction.
“It comes down to this: Employees want to work for a place where they think that they’re cared about,” said Scott Rogan, manager of the Providence branch of Robert Half. “And they want to know that this is going to be a stable, growing area.”
HR executives at insurer FM Global, one of Rhode Island’s largest employers, said the company works hard to retain employees, offering training, pension and 401(k) plans and tuition assistance, among other things.
The offerings have paid off, according to Mary Fox, the company’s HR manager of organizational effectiveness.
FM Global has avoided layoffs and continued to hire during the downturn. The employee turnover rate for 2009 of 4.25 percent – that includes retirements and firings – is significantly lower than the 31 percent industry rate.
“We take great pride in developing our employees,” Fox said. “And we do have a large variety of growth opportunity.”
And those are the attributes recruiting prospects are saying they’re looking for nowadays, according to Kristen Quagliozzi.
Before the recession, compensation was one of the first questions candidates asked. Now it’s rarely mentioned in initial conversations, Quagliozzi said.
But career development and opportunity, additional training and education are forefront in the mind of people thinking of taking the leap.
“They want employers to show that the company is invested in them,” she said.
Also, many candidates express a sense that the recession had delayed their career plans as time continues to tick away, Quagliozzi said. “People are saying they’ve been sort of stuck, and now they want to resume their career trajectory. … There’s a feeling of, ‘I need to be in charge of my own career destiny.’ ” •