Rethinking the Factors Behind Employee Loyalty and Retention

May 15, 2026 – Two widely repeated assumptions continue to shape discussions around today’s workforce, despite oversimplifying a far more nuanced reality. Claims that employee loyalty has disappeared, or that departures are driven almost entirely by poor management, often overlook the broader mix of organizational, economic, leadership, and career factors influencing retention. While such narratives persist because they are concise and easily reinforced by individual experiences or online commentary, they rarely capture the complexity of why professionals choose to stay with—or leave—an employer.

That said, it also isn’t fair to dismiss the truths and feelings around those claims, according to a recent report from The Bridger Group, a 57-year-old executive search firm working exclusively in the building products and commercial interior products industries. The firm sees firsthand that people have many different reasons for changing roles. Yes, some people are escaping a bad manager. But the report explained that others are perfectly happy…except for that “one little thing.” And if another company can solve that “one little thing,” some employees may consider making a change.

“The basic idea here is that loyalty goes both ways,” The Bridger Group report said. The firm offers a few critical ways your company can develop a workplace where employees want to stay.

Keeping Up with Compensation

Replacing an employee can cost 50 percent to 200 percent of the previous employee’s annual salary, according to research by SHRM. “Say you have a high-performing employee who makes $80,000 annually asking for a five percent raise, bringing their hypothetical salary up to $84,000,” The Bridger Group report explained. “If their request is denied and they decide to leave, it could cost up to $160,000 to replace them. It may seem like a steep jump, but several factors drive that number.”

“There’s the new employee’s salary, yes,” the study continued. “But there’s also a cost to how long it takes HR to find that replacement rather than making other more strategic hires. How many HR team members worked on the search, and how much time did they spend? If they can’t find the right person and you bring a recruiting expert in, that expertise comes with a fee.”

Those are more easily measurable things, according to The Bridger Group report. “But beyond that, every day, hour, minute, second a role is empty is a productivity loss for your business,” it said. “Even after hiring a replacement, there’s still plenty of downtime before the new team member is up-to-speed and operating at full capacity. And even then, depending on the previous employee’s tenure, you’re losing significant historical and institutional knowledge that an employee can only learn over time.”

Employee Engagement Starts at the Top

Culture Amp recently looked at global data from 3+ million employees across 4700+ companies and unearthed some fascinating insights. “One of the most intriguing was this: when asked about aspects of their company engagement, employees with great managers but poor leaders responded most similarly to employees with poor managers and poor leaders,” The Bridger Group report said. “Let’s shift perspective. The engagement of employees with poor managers but great leaders was consistently twice as high (or higher!) than that of employees with great managers but poor leaders. Remember that adage about how people don’t quit jobs, they quit bad managers? It might be fairer to swap out manager for organizational leader.”

How To Build Employee Engagement

The latest data indicates a global decline in employee engagement, according to recent report from IMSA Search Global Partners’ president Thierry Goder. Figures from Statista found that the global employee engagement rate, which reached its highest point in 2020 at 69 percent, has decreased annually to 67 percent last year. All regions experienced drops, but Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest engagement rate at 68 percent, while Europe had the lowest at 52 percent. In the U.S., the situation is more alarming, with Gallup reporting 33 percent engagement among full and part-time employees, the lowest level of engagement since 2013.

The Bridger Group report noted that your managers can’t out-lead ineffective leadership higher in your company.

This raises another question. What are companies doing to develop and maintain great leaders? As it turns out, not much. “Despite the vast majority of next-generation leaders saying they had a major impact on their development, less than half receive executive coaching, and barely a quarter have a mentor outside their organization,” The Bridger Group report said. “A great way to measure engagement is through employee surveys that use both qualitative and quantitative (numbers-based) data. Anonymity is key here, and using a third-party organization can help encourage more honest answers from your team.”

Promote Along Desired Growth-Paths

Your employees need to see a future for themselves in your company, according to The Bridger Group report. “While part of that involves feeling secure that their role won’t suddenly be eliminated, another key aspect is seeing potential for growth,” it explained. “If all they see five years down the line is more of the exact same work they’re already doing, they might start looking for an alternative path. Growth can look different from one person to the next. Not everyone aspires to be CEO one day! That means helping employees figure out what growth looks like for them.”

From an operational perspective, this can look like open, honest, and sometimes difficult conversations setting reasonable expectations for future growth opportunities. The Bridger Group report pointed to some assessments available to help support and guide these discussions, including:

• Wonderlic Assessment (gaps between individual skills and role expectations).
• DiSC Assessments (how people naturally engage with others).
• Gallup’s CliftonStrengths (stack-ranking inherent strengths and weaknesses).
• Kolbe Assessments (how much energy people naturally have for different types of tasks).

Connect Them to the Company’s Success

The Bridger Group knows that keeping stakeholders happy is important. But the whole reason companies seek loyalty from their employees is that without their team there are no profits. No company can be successful without turning a profit, and employees who feel disconnected from their company’s success are unlikely to feel loyal to it. The Bridger Group explained that this leads to lower productivity, higher turnover, and—you guessed it—lower profits.

Related: Power Shift: How Employer Control and Employee Expectations Are Shaping the Future of Work

“While part of this includes making reasonable compensation adjustments, the options hardly end there,” The Bridger Group report said.” Some companies offer profit-sharing, regular quarterly or annual performance-based bonuses, even extra whole-team paid days off for hitting company-wide key performance metrics.

The Ball is in Your Court

In a dynamic market where things seem to change more often than they stay the same, companies can only control so much, according to The Bridger Group report. “As an employer, you have the power to make or break the employee experience,” it said. “Yet while you pay their salaries and offer other benefits, most employees won’t feel that they owe you their loyalty. How you choose to encourage longer tenures is entirely up to you. Employing good managers is important, but it’s even more critical to ensure you have the right leaders at the top of your organization. Beyond choosing the right people from the get-go, this means continuing to offer resources to further develop healthy leadership skills.”

“Paying your team members fairly without trying to undercut the value they bring to save a buck,” the report concluded. “Proactively and consistently rewarding good work and company achievements. Sharing success across the entire organization. Those are the types of actions that truly matter. All these things play a role in creating a working environment people want to be part of. And the more you find ways to meaningfully impact your employees, the more likely they are to stay.”

The Bridger Group’s expertise encompasses various product verticals, including roofing, flooring, doors, insulation, and windows, allowing them to tailor their search processes to the specific needs of their clients. The firm operates across the U.S., Canada, and Latin America, serving a diverse clientele in the building materials and commercial interiors industries.

Jordan Underwood is managing partner at The Bridger Group. He has spent the majority of his career in sales, and he thrives in this environment. Mr. Underwood enjoys helping clients and candidates meet their goals and will go above and beyond to ensure they succeed. His background working in financial sales in Chicago also gives him unique insight into running the operations side of the business.

Related: The Role of Employee Experience in Boosting Talent Acquisition Outcomes

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media