“Office frog” is a relatively new term used to describe employees who often hop between jobs – just as a frog leaps between pads in a pond.
The term is usually associated with people in Gen Z – between 13 and 28 years old – who have only ever worked in the era of smart phones and social media. As employers face tougher and tougher decisions regarding hiring due to financial constraints, they must also now grapple with who is likely to stay in a job and the whether time and effort of training them is worth it.
How can businesses maintain a sense of consistency in their standards and values if the employees are not going to stay very long? Businesses will need to look at how they can attract and retain the loyalty of employees now that the days of ‘a job for life’ are long gone.
If workers are leaving because they feel bored, or cannot progress, or need a level of income that cannot be obtained in their current roles then of course they are going to look elsewhere. The flip side of that as an employer is that if you see a CV of an office frog, are you going to waste the time and effort of employing them, bringing them up to speed and training them if they will leave in a year or so and all that exposure benefits another business?
So what can businesses do to address the frog issue? Obviously, money and rewards can be a big motivator, but that is very unlikely to be the only factor that affects most people’s decision to stay in or leave a role. Holidays, learning opportunities, office culture, flexible working and the chance to progress are also going to come into play, and although not all businesses will be in a position to offer all of those things, those that totally ignore all of them will lose good employees to those that do.
There are a whole host of trivial benefits and non monetary rewards that a business can offer to attract and retain employees, hopefully avoiding the frog issue altogether.