One of the most common reasons people give for leaving their jobs, according to our exit interview data, is that employees feel their career aspirations have fallen off line with their employers.
Whatever your people may say to you, the most common reason people are leaving their jobs right now is about career direction.
In fact, 24% of UK workers cited a lack of career opportunities as a main reason for leaving their job. This was second only to work-life balance (41%), and ahead of other factors like lack of interest in the role (22%) and lack of flexible working (20%). (CIPD)
There seem to be lots of conversations about performance, targets, and objectives… Far fewer conversations are being facilitated around careers and aspirations with increasing demand on managers to develop talent for their teams.
It’s understandable; when you invest time in someone, you want to see the return. But it also creates a kind of talent trap.
We start treating people as “local assets” rather than “corporate assets.” And that mindset has consequences.
The Internal Mobility Dilemma
When someone’s ready to move and there’s no opportunity in their current team, we risk losing them altogether.
This isn’t because they don’t want to stay with the business, but because no one helped them see a future within the business.
We’ve seen it play out countless times: high performers leave because their managers either didn’t have roles to offer or didn’t encourage them to look elsewhere internally.
Sometimes, it’s because those managers’ own careers feel stalled. If they’re not moving forward, the idea of supporting someone else’s growth can feel threatening or disheartening.
Are You Having the Right Career Conversations?
Even if you do encourage mobility and have a succession plan in place, are you having the right conversations with your people?
Take this example from our Executive Chairman, Ian. In one of his previous roles, he was involved in a succession planning validation exercise. On paper, everything looked seamless: when Fred left, Charlie would step up. Simple.
Except no one had ever asked Charlie.
As it turned out, Charlie had no interest in the promotion.
The new role was based in London, while his life was firmly rooted in Nottingham.
The assumption was that he’d jump at the opportunity: bigger title, bigger salary. But for Charlie, a two-hour commute and a complete lifestyle upheaval wasn’t worth it.
This happens more often than we like to admit. People opt out of the next step not because they lack ambition, but because they’ve weighed the trade-offs and said, “No thanks.”
That’s why it’s not enough to map out careers on paper.
The real key is having the right conversations: honest, human, two-way dialogue.
Without it, even the best-laid plans are built on guesswork.
Career Coaching, Not Just Career Paths
If we want to retain great people, we need to change the conversation. That means:
- Working with your managers: This is crucial to ensure that they see the bigger talent retention picture.
- Shifting from assumption to conversation: Don’t just map out succession plans — talk to people about what they want.
- Seeing career as a journey, not a ladder: Lateral moves, skill-building roles, or projects that stretch someone in a new direction might be more valuable than a title bump.
- Preparing people for the move, not just offering it: Bigger jobs come with real costs: time, stress, travel, visibility. Career coaching can help people understand what they’re signing up for and whether it truly aligns with their goals, and it plays a key role in boosting engagement, too. Read more on how career coaching can boost employee engagement.
Start the Right Conversations with Career Navigator
If you’re serious about internal mobility and talent retention, it starts with better career conversations, not just performance reviews or succession plans.
Our new Career Navigator service helps your people explore what they really want from their careers, and helps your managers support them with confidence.
Let’s move beyond guesswork and start building real career momentum from within.
Stay tuned for an exciting new service we’re launching soon, designed to equip your team with the tools to boost engagement and elevate their careers!
Iona joined Chiumento in 2024, bringing a vibrant background in design as a freelance illustrator and marketer, along with experience as a Product Manager for a leading educational training brand. A 2020 AUB graduate with a BA Hons in Illustration, Iona is enthusiastic about digital strategy and marketing.