You may suspect that the capable young manager in your company wants to jump ship-it is quite possible. Research shows that the most popular young talents, even if they seem to concentrate on their work, have been thinking about what to do next. The employee development plan is not enough to keep them.

We analyzed two large databases containing the survey results of more than 200 employees around the world/kloc-0, and interviewed some employees. The study found that these young senior talents with an average age of 30 are generally anxious, even though they graduated from top universities with excellent results and had internship experience in multinational companies. During their first job, three-quarters of them will submit their resumes, contact headhunters and interview at least once a year. Nearly 95% of the respondents often engage in job-related activities, such as updating resumes and searching for information about potential employers. They leave their jobs after an average of 28 months.

Who can blame them? Comparing the salary records of managers who constantly change jobs with those of their peers who don't, we find that every job change will bring obvious salary increase. Job-hopping is actually the biggest factor to promote salary increase. This is obviously different from the past. For a long time, job-hopping has been regarded as a shortcut to promotion. However, research shows that this cognition is only a myth of the previous generation, and their generation has to pay a price for promotion, which often affects their salary.

Dissatisfaction with the company's employee development plan is also the incentive for young management talents to quit. We asked respondents what their employers have done for their employees' career development and what their expectations are, and found that there are huge differences between them. Respondents said that companies usually meet the development needs of the position itself, such as providing positions that can give full play to their talents and take on greater responsibilities, and they themselves attach great importance to these opportunities. However, they also attach great importance to formal development such as training and guidance, which the company fails to fully provide.

Why is there such a gap? We believe that the reason lies in the high cost of formal training, which may also cause employees to leave their jobs for a short time. Understandably, employers are reluctant to invest too much in employees who may jump ship immediately. But this practice will create a vicious circle: employees may leave, so the company is unwilling to provide training, and employees leave because they can't get training. If the company can provide more balanced career development opportunities for talented young managers, it may be able to retain these talents.

Monica Hamori is a professor at IE Business School in Madrid, where Cao Jie is a doctoral student. Braque Koyuncu is an assistant professor at Rouen Business School.