There are a lot of hardworking yet highly unsatisfied management executives walking the halls of corporate America these days.

Just don't expect them to tell you so, or anyone else, for that matter, unless you're an executive recruiter. After all, they're not working long hours and occasional nights and weekends with limited resources in search of the casual opportunity just to tell their existing employers and colleagues that they're already lining up their options for a new job elsewhere.

Employers and colleagues will find out just as soon as he or she accepts an offer of employment from another company — and then, in typical fashion, they'll scramble to pick up the pieces and search for a replacement whom, if recruited from the outside, may not be found for six to 12 months.

The findings of the 2010 Executive Retention Report recently released by ExecuNet and Finnegan Mackenzie — The Retention Firm embody what might, at some later date, be seen as a "Don't tell us we didn't warn you" broadside forewarning of increasing executive departures and significant management retention issues.

The second annual report found that over 90 percent of US CEOs and other management leaders believe an executive can be engaged in their work and with their employer but still open to considering new career opportunities. This was reflected in their attitudes about their own sense of engagement and job satisfaction.

Exactly 93 percent of CEOs, presidents and top business executives reported they're engaged in their current role, but only 75 percent said they're actually satisfied with it. Also, roughly 7-in-10 other C-suite executives and others at the vice president, director and manager levels are likewise engaged in their day-to-day work, but only 5-in-10 said they feel a sense of overall job satisfaction.

"Companies should take the time now to consider how their potential failure to retain their best management executives will weigh on corporate productivity, financial results and succession plans in the coming year," says ExecuNet's President, Mark Anderson. "Even before this recovery takes full effect, it's clear that surprisingly high numbers of executives are restless and eager to explore what a more growth-oriented economy has in store for them."

Further, Anderson commented, "If companies can't retain their executive leaders and don't have the right teams in place, they simply won't reach their business objectives for the coming year. For that reason, retention risk should be on the corporate agenda now."

To stave off key executive defections, says Richard Finnegan, principal of Finnegan Mackenzie — The Retention Firm, and author of Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad, companies should consider conducting "stay interviews" to rebuild trust with key business leaders, get them re-engaged and explore what the company could do to increase their job satisfaction, and get them focused on the potential upside of staying — before it's too late.

Joseph Daniel McCool
Joseph Daniel McCool is senior contributing editor with ExecuNet and principal of management recruiting/succession advisory firm The McCool Group. He is also the author of Deciding Who Leads: How Executive Recruiters Drive, Direct & Disrupt the Global Search for Leadership Talent, recognized widely as "one of the best business books of 2008," and its Brazilian Portuguese translation, Escolhendo Líderes, published in June 2010.

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