Last October a well-known Employee Retention report published by Eagle Hill Consulting, showed a YTD high in the likelihood of employers retaining their current employees – particularly their millennial workers and women. We’ve seen that trend ourselves, which some staffing professionals have labeled “job hugging”, which refers to a candidate marketplace where currently employed folks are hesitant to leave their current jobs, making it more challenging to recruiters to play into their current techniques. Job hugging can happen for a variety of reasons, but from our perch, where we talk to hundreds of potential job candidates each month, it has a lot to do with a growing uncertainty about what might lie ahead for the economy and jobs in general. For sure they have read the headlines of layoffs and cutbacks, leading many employees to believe their best bet for navigating the current economy is to stay with their current employer, rather than taking a risk with a new employer and unfamiliar management practices.
The ER index is important to hiring managers and staffing professionals because the higher the index the less likely an organization is going to experience unexpected turnover. On the recruiting side it also means fewer new candidates coming into the marketplace, more employees choosing to stay in their current roles rather than take a risk going somewhere new.
The particular ER index we track reviews employee sentiment data on 3 factors most likely to influence job change and their data assembled between July and September 2025, showed some interesting trends in the data they review…
- An increase in employee satisfaction with their compensation, benefits and perceived ability to grow earnings in their current job
- An increase in the employee’s confidence in their company’s future and leadership (actually reaching record highs)
- A stronger connection to their company’s culture
There were also a few demographic findings worth note – retention is likely going to be higher amongst millennial workers and women and is likely to be weakest among Gen X workers and men. We’ll be staying tune for their next report that is targeted to come out in January.
