Although managers and their HR colleagues are beginning to understand that employee experience matters for hiring and retention, they haven’t reached anything close to a consensus on what it should look like or how to provide it. Some workplaces invest heavily in wellness benefits and initiatives, with mixed results. Others try (and in many cases struggle) to create effective mentoring or learning and development programs—worthy endeavors but tough to get right if you haven’t identified what employees want from them.

It’s time to step way back from these related but typically uncoordinated efforts so that managers can see and address the larger issue of experience. Over the past 15 years we’ve collectively studied the behavioral patterns of more than a thousand job switchers at all levels and career stages—a racially diverse sample representing a wide range of roles and professions. In interviews, surveys, classroom discussions, consulting engagements, and coaching sessions, we’ve found again and again that employees who quit their jobs do so because they aren’t making the progress they seek in their careers and lives.

By supporting people in their personal quests for progress—in ways that meet the organization’s needs—managers can, our research suggests, create employee experiences that are mutually beneficial. In our qualitative dataset we found that career moves were driven primarily by four quests. We’ll describe them here and discuss how managers can help employees on their journeys. But first let’s take a closer look at the stakes for employers.

Attrition Is a Persistent, Costly Problem

Leaders can’t reasonably blame their human capital troubles on the economic or competitive challenges of the day. Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw the highest quit rates in U.S. history, employers complained that talented people were walking out the door with their knowledge, skills, and relationships. Those departures are expensive. Studies estimate that on average, the cost of losing an employee ranges from six to nine months’ worth of that person’s compensation. For technical and executive positions it can be as high as twice the employee’s annual salary.

Despite copious employee surveys, pulse checks, and exit interviews, companies usually don’t get to the bottom of why people quit. Departing employees may keep their reasons for leaving to themselves—out of fear that they’ll burn bridges, for example, or out of a sense of futility. And we’ve often found in our coaching sessions that people aren’t even clear themselves about their reasons for career moves until they sit down with a trusted coach, mentor, or friend who can help them understand what’s really driving them. Most people don’t do that. Instead they respond to job postings that grab their attention and switch jobs when they get a decent offer, hoping that things will improve—only to be dissatisfied down the line. Some switch again and again; many never find quite what they need.

The Forces That Compel Job Moves

The act of quitting (quiet or otherwise) is different for each person and driven by a variety of forces. Trying to retain employees without understanding what motivates them as individuals is like grabbing a flathead screwdriver out of your toolbox before checking whether the screw that needs attention is a Phillips head.

To make it easier for people to realize what led them to make a particular career move, we have identified the most common functional, social, and emotional forces that compel action (see the sidebar “The Push and Pull of a Job Switch”). In our research we explored a range of questions: What problems with a job’s basic functions—assignments, projects, activities, tasks, and so on—can fuel a desire for change? To what extent can employees’ met or unmet social needs drive career moves? How can employees’ emotional needs—to feel energized, for example, rather than depleted—affect their willingness to trade in the familiar for the unknown?

In our conversations with job switchers, we heard that negative experiences (doing work that feels empty, for example, or disliking one’s colleagues), along with changing life circumstances (such as moving or having kids), pushed individuals away from their old roles. The potential for positive experiences elsewhere pulled them toward something new. Those forces work together. Our findings square with research by the Wharton economist Katy Milkman, which shows that behavioral pushes become stronger when a new idea or solution pulls people toward something they aspire to. For example, a salesperson in our sample who felt micromanaged in his job stayed put until he was enticed by an offer that would allow him to take control over all aspects of the sales cycle.

To gather detailed information about prevalent pushes and pulls, we interviewed people not about their current circumstances—which might or might not prompt a career move—but about their most recent job switch.