Research Studies

"Survey of U.S. Business Leaders"

No author cited
Grant Thornton, September 2004.

Available Online

According to this Grant Thornton survey, 54 percent of business leaders expect to increase headcount in the next six months and 83 percent believe that retention is one of the most important issues they are facing today. Fifty-seven percent report that they are more focused on retention now than the previous year.

Respondents believed a number of factors influenced an organization’s ability to retain key personnel. Almost eight out of 10 (79 percent) said that “the style and values of people in key leadership positions” had the biggest impact on retention.

According to the respondents, the next most important factors were:

• Championing the company’s core values, mission and goals to build awareness and understanding (78 percent).
• Coaching and mentoring top performers for leadership positions (77 percent).
• Aligning employees with their corporate vision (76 percent).
• Weeding out weaker performers (62 percent).
• Using surveys to monitor employee perceptions and acting on results (32 percent).

The study examined the opinions of 300 business leaders at firms with revenues between $50 million and $2 billion dollars. Respondents were asked about their optimism in both the economy and their own prospects for growth as well as their views on what they saw as their biggest challenges for the future. This is the ninth edition of this bi-annual survey.