Nearly two-thirds (63%) of firms cite burnout as the top reason employees leave, according to the
This year’s edition of the report focused on the theme of “belonging,” arguing it’s not merely a soft idea, but a hard business imperative for recruiting and retaining talent.
“Through the survey and then external research that we did, belonging seems to be why people leave — more so than pay, more so than anything else out there,” Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk, president of the Accounting MOVE Project, told Accounting Today.
“We’ve all had moments, both fleeting and formative, when we were made to feel like we didn’t belong. And in those moments, it didn’t matter how smart, hardworking or qualified we were. It didn’t matter how much we ‘sucked it up,'” Ruszczyk wrote in the report. “The simple truth is that exclusion hurts. It shrinks our confidence. It limits our participation. It makes us question whether we should even show up.”
For working parents or employees looking to start families, taking time off can come with the worry of asking for too much time off and missing out on career opportunities because of it. But the report found that only 17% of firms track the number of employees who are working parents. Roughly two-thirds (68%) offer extended parental leave equally for both mothers and fathers.
One participating firm, which offers non-shareholder sabbaticals after eight years, said in the report: “If someone stays six years, they’re gold. Eight years? They’ve earned real rest. Four weeks of complete disconnection isn’t a cost, it’s an investment in their next decade with us. The first applications came within hours of our announcement.”
“We didn’t just add benefits, we reimagined support,” stated a senior leader of another firm. “Eighty hours of separate sick time acknowledges caregiving complexity. We’ve had three leaders on parental leave simultaneously, and operations haven’t missed a beat because we planned for it.”
With regard to compensation, the report found that only one-third (32%) of firms analyze pay equity by ethnicity, and only 19% train managers on fair pay practices, down from 37% the prior year. And while 94% of firms have pay band structures, only 42% conduct regular pay equity review, with another 47% reviewed “as needed.”
“We were operating with hidden rules,” one firm said. “Promotions felt arbitrary, and feedback was vague. Things like ‘develop executive presence’ without defining what that meant. Now we have explicit competencies at every level. Everyone knows exactly what’s required for advancement.”
Over half (53%) of firms offer career coaching for alternative partnership tracks, and 78% formally identify high-potential employees, but only 56% train managers to identify them.
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