Do you know what work your employees really enjoy doing? Most business owners and managers have no idea, according to a recent Harvard Business Review article authored by three Facebook executives and a university professor. “It spills out in exit interviews — a standard practice in every HR department to find out why talented people are leaving and what would have convinced them to stick around,” the article says.

A smarter approach is to figure out why people leave before they actually do. A recent study from the ADP Research Institute found that 5% of all workers leave their job every month, and most employee turnover is voluntary.

“Unemployment is at a 17-year low, and job switching is at a record high,” says co-head of the ADP Research Institute Ahu Yildirmaz. “It has always been important for employers to minimize turnover, but it is more critical now than ever before given the current state of labor market.”

40 Reasons for Leaving

The ADP study determined 40 factors that contribute to voluntary turnover. Those factors can be categorized as: “Pay, promotion, overtime/premium time, commute, experience-and-tenure, and other job characteristics.”

The specific influence each of these categories has on causing employees to leave varies by industry. Pay and promotion are the main drivers of voluntary turnover. Commute time, the study found, is a more important factor than experience and tenure.

Understanding why employees leave can help a company in a couple of ways. First, this can guide you in hiring. If you know that a long commute is a significant factor in why a certain class of employees tends to quit, you might re-consider whether to hire someone who will spend an hour on the freeway each day getting to work.

These insights can also help you determine which of your workers are likely to leave.  They can also help to uncover workplace issues you need to address. Perhaps you can offer remote work or a flexible schedule to that worker with the long commute. If good workers are going elsewhere because of benefits, you may need to reconsider your benefits package.

Conduct Stay Interviews

What’s the best way for a company to figure out what is causing its turnover issues? You no doubt have done interviews when you were deciding to hire someone.  And, many of you might have conducted “exit interviews” after someone leaves.

Susan Heathfield, a people management expert for TheBalance, suggests you also conduct “stay interviews” to determine the reasons that employees remain at your company. “Then, pay attention to and enhance the factors they identify that keep them coming back every day,” she suggests.

If you pay close attention to the reason employees leave, there’s a good chance your turnover will decline. And the workers who stick around will be more productive.