Many have tried to cull the storm of workers looking for different jobs at the beginning of each year, to no avail. Even with incentives aplenty to make staff happy, ‘job hunt’ remains one of the top-ranking Google searches.

The term finds its way onto the internet 2.4m times a year and 273 times an hour. That’s according to CIPD course provider DPG, and it recently analysed Google Autocomplete data to see if the search giant could shed insight on the matter.

The point was to find out the individual reasons most likely to prompt your staff to type in those two significant words – job hunt. What it found was “at times funny but, unfortunately, incredibly disheartening”. Most importantly, it unveiled Google searches often never get voiced to the HR department due to sheer embarrassment of the question.

With so much information at our fingertips, it’s easy to see why people would turn to Google instead. But DPG explained it’s not only given people cause to question the most unusual things, but has cut out the experts where need be. If HR was available to tackle such queries you’d stand more of a chance at retaining staff.

It’s time to let staff know that you’re listening, and that the business will help them answer any pending questions no matter how silly they may be. But in the mean time, here are top 13 Google searches DPG suggested led to a job change.

1) My colleagues are racist

2) Are my colleagues having an affair

3) Why are my colleagues so stupid?

4) Slept with someone I work with

5) Someone I know has bed bugs

6) My job kills my soul

7) One of my colleagues smells

8) Should someone work with pink eye?

9) Kissed someone I work with

10) My colleagues think I’m weird

11) My job feels pointless

12) My job keeps me up at night

13) My colleagues laugh at me

“Of course, Google has become the first place many people turn to if they’ve got a query or embarrassing problem,” said Paul Drew, DPG’s managing director. “The trouble is that the advice out there is rarely as useful as we’d like, often being hearsay, gut feeling or simply inaccurate.

“HR departments and many managers are trained specifically for dealing with sensitive issues, and cultivating a supportive culture, so people should always feel like they can ask for advice or support if they need it.”

Image: Shutterstock

By Shané Schutte