Is your business suffering from a workplace ‘situationship’?

A new survey shows nearly 60 percent of employees feel no long-term commitment from their employers—and a third are already preparing to leave.

A large portion of workers and their employers really aren’t into each other these days. That’s resulting in traditionally solid, long-term workplace relationships weakening into less formal and committed “situationships” that significantly increase the risk of rising turnover.

Just how “meh” has the company-employee bond become? Nearly 60 percent of the 1,000 workers surveyed by job hunting support platform Zety said they “don’t see a clear, long-term path with their current employer.” Nearly a quarter of respondents who felt that way reported they “were actively looking for other options” that offer stronger bilateral workplace commitment, and more pathways to career advancement.

Therein lies the risk to business leaders seeing a surge in turnover when workers feeling unloved find outside opportunities.

“The traditional career path is being replaced by a professional holding pattern,” warned career expert Jasmine Escaler in comments accompanying Zety’s findings. “Most workers no longer view their current roles as long-term investments, choosing instead to coast casually or keep an active eye on the exit.”

The turnover risks of workplace ‘situationships’

“Casual” is the operative term—which is why more employers may hear “let’s meet for coffee at the end of the day” when they ask staff who’ve sunk into workplace “situationships” for more engagement.

Fully one third of respondents described their employment status as “casual”—something reflecting a degree of satisfaction with their jobs, but not enough to view them as long-term prospects. Around 15 percent of participants said they were already looking to jump ship, and further 12 percent said they’d likely pack their bags as well, but had hesitated due to today’s tough labor markets.

What’s behind the malaise? Fully 63 percent of respondents, “don’t feel their employer is loyal and committed to them long-term”, the survey found. Another 32 percent said their managers viewed them as more interchangeable than valuable—or else weren’t interested in keeping them on staff at all.

Just 31 percent of respondents said their employer was invested keeping them onboard. At the same time, most of those people expressed the awareness they could be quickly replaced amid current low-hire, low-fire recruitment strategies, which tended to weaken their feelings of job security and stability.

The problem for business owners and managers is that even if staffers feeling spurned have it all wrong, those perceptions still increase turnover risk—and threaten to inflict other workplace damage.

“These job security and employee loyalty statistics are the corporate equivalent of a standoff where nobody wants to be the first one to commit,” Escalera said. “Workers aren’t investing their futures in companies that treat them like numbers on a spreadsheet, and employers aren’t providing the security employees crave.”

How employers can strengthen ‘situationships’

But if employers are that indifferent or even cold to employees, why haven’t the latter already started leaving in droves?

Financial pressures—and the corresponding necessity of continuing income—topped respondents’ list of stay-put motives. Those were followed by people preferring to stay with what they know rather than risk big change; fear of losing critical benefits they rely on; work flexibility that their job still affords; and the inhospitality of the current labor market.

“It’s not a professional romance; it’s a marriage of convenience dictated by economic reality,” Escalera said.

What can companies do to remedy workers’ sentiment that employers aren’t committed to them, and turn weakening “situationships” into strong workplace bonds again? The most obvious way is to address the negative perceptions and criticisms cited by workers who feel unappreciated—and clearly communicate how those can be improved.

The biggest factor in that is to demonstrate the career and growth opportunities staffers aren’t taking advantage of—especially the 32 percent of respondents who said they didn’t see those paths open to them in their companies. Doing that will also help reduce the unfulfilled or frustrated feelings nearly a quarter of workers reported, as will helping them set and pursue clear and attainable work-life balance objectives.

Two other ways employers can help strengthen bonds with staff is encouraging members to report poor relationships with managers—then work with both sides to improve those. Another top complaint: job or role expectations that were never be fully explained, or which may have been but continued to evolve over time, without those changes and updates being recognized and addressed by bosses.

Many of those solutions may only involve business owners calling more attention to opportunities or programs already in place, then urging employees to take advantage of them. The mere effort of addressing the ambition-assets gap—and showing how that can be bridged—can go a long way toward convincing workers they’re indeed appreciated and valued.

“A job turns into a situationship when communication fades and the opportunity for professional growth disappears,” Escalera says—noting that trouble can arise even when workers simply lose sight of potentials companies offer.  “Without clear expectations or a path forward, employees are left in limbo, navigating mixed signals and blurred boundaries.”

This post originally appeared at inc.com.

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