The people you trained with may be the people you leave your job with. (FabrikaSimf/Shutterstock)
Why One Employee Leaving Could Spark a Mass Exodus
In a nutshell
- Your work friends matter more than you think. New employees are more likely to start job hunting and even quit if their training group or “cohort” starts looking for new opportunities.
- Location preference is a powerful buffer. When companies honor a new hire’s preferred work location, it significantly reduces the influence of peer turnover, even if their whole group starts searching for jobs.
- Cohorts can make or break retention. The stronger your bonds with your training peers, the more likely their behaviors will shape your own career decisions, for better or worse.
TAMPA, Fla. — When you start a new job, the people you train with might determine whether you stay or leave far more than your boss does. A new study reveals that new employees are significantly influenced by their “cohorts,” the colleagues who join and train with them, when deciding whether to search for another job or quit altogether. This suggests that supervisors don’t always have the greatest impact on employee retention.
According to a new international study published in the Journal of General Management, employees with close cohort relationships tend to follow their peers’ lead when it comes to job-hunting behaviors. If their training group starts looking elsewhere, newcomers often catch the job-search bug too.
“At a strategic HR conference, Dr. Ghosh and I discussed how little research exists on the effects from newcomer cohorts,” study author Amit Chauradia tells StudyFinds. “Dr. Ghosh surveyed a large global IT firm, where cohort-based hiring is common, giving us a unique opportunity to study these dynamics.”
The Powerful Influence of Work Friends
The study tracked 656 graduate trainees across 32 cohorts at a global IT services organization, following them from their initial training through their first two years of employment. These new hires underwent two months of technical training together before being assigned to various project teams across different cities.
“I remember when I joined my first firm, I was part of a team of eight and I was largely influenced by them,” adds Chauradia. “After experiencing the contagious effect of groups myself, I knew I had to study this at some point in my research career.”
Researchers examined cohort relationships at 6 months and 12 months, measured job embeddedness and job-seeking behaviors at 18 months, and tracked who actually left the company by the 24-month mark. By the end of the study period, 27% of participants had voluntarily quit.
The data revealed that when cohort members began seeking new jobs, their fellow trainees were likely to follow suit, but only under specific conditions.
The researchers found that cohort members hold greater social significance for newcomers than typical coworkers do. Their influence can override a newcomer’s own sense of organizational commitment, leading them to consider leaving even if they’re otherwise satisfied with their position.
“This kind of ‘group influence’ is what we call turnover contagion,” adds Chauradia. “Basically, the friendships and bonds people form during training or onboarding can help them stay—or push them to leave—depending on what the group is feeling.”
This influence was dramatically stronger when newcomers had close ties with their cohort, as measured by the frequency of interactions, strength of relationships, and network density. Those with strong cohort connections were much more likely to be influenced by their peers’ job-searching behaviors.
This “turnover contagion” can be neutralized by something seemingly simple: being placed in your preferred location. When companies honor a new employee’s geographic preference, they become remarkably resistant to the influence of peers who are job-hunting.
The research suggests that when cohort members demonstrate stronger organizational embeddedness, they tend to suppress job-hunting behaviors among their peers. When newcomers see their cohort displaying commitment to the organization, it creates an expectation of loyalty that discourages job-seeking.
Rather than viewing cohorts as temporary training groups, companies might benefit from seeing them as powerful social networks that continue to influence employee decisions long after orientation ends. At the same time, honoring location preferences, whether for work-related reasons like joining a prestigious office or personal reasons like being close to family, appears to create a powerful buffer against turnover contagion.
What This Means for Employers and Employees
Cohorts can either stabilize or destabilize a workforce. When cohort members are highly embedded in the organization, they reduce turnover; when they begin job-hunting, they can trigger a mass exodus.
For employees, your work friends might be influencing your career decisions more than you realize. That casual lunch conversation about job dissatisfaction or that after-work chat about updating resumes could be contagiously shaping your own job satisfaction and career trajectory.
“It’s also empowering to know that you also have the ability to influence the cohort just as much as it influences you,” adds Chauradia. “Whether it’s being optimistic or committed, your behavior contributes to shaping the group’s collective outlook and beliefs.”
These findings provide a fresh perspective on employee retention, especially when high turnover rates and “quiet quitting” are common in today’s workforce. The people who determine whether you stay or go might just be the colleagues who started the journey with you.
Paper Summary
Methodology
The researchers collected data from graduate trainees at an Indian IT and consultancy organization over a 24-month period. They identified 32 cohorts with an average size of 20.5 people per cohort. Data was collected at multiple time points: cohort closeness ties at 6 and 12 months after joining, job embeddedness and job search behaviors at 18 months, and company turnover records at 24 months. The study used surveys to measure key variables including cohort relationships, location preference satisfaction, job embeddedness, and job search behaviors. The researchers used multilevel logistic regression to analyze the hierarchical data, controlling for factors like age, gender, tenure, and job satisfaction.
Results
The study found that cohort job embeddedness negatively predicted both newcomer job search behaviors and turnover. When cohort members began searching for jobs, newcomers were significantly more likely to also search for jobs, especially when they had strong ties with their cohort (in terms of relationship strength, density, and network size). However, this “contagion effect” was dramatically reduced when newcomers were placed in their preferred geographic location. By the end of the study period, 27% of participants had voluntarily left the organization, with cohort influence being a significant predictor of who stayed versus who left.
Limitations
The study relied primarily on self-reported data, which could introduce bias. While the researchers collected data at multiple time points to reduce single-source bias, and obtained turnover data directly from company records, the self-assessment nature of many measurements remains a limitation. The research was conducted in a single industry (IT/consulting) in India, potentially limiting generalizability to other contexts. The study also focused mainly on on-the-job embeddedness factors rather than examining off-the-job embeddedness like family ties, home ownership, or community connections that might influence retention.
Funding/Disclosures
The authors declared no financial support or potential conflicts of interest related to the research, authorship, or publication of this article.
Publication Information
The study “The ties that bind: Cohort influence on newcomers staying or leaving their organization” was published in the Journal of General Management (2025, Vol. 0, Issue 0, pp. 1-14) by Koustab Ghosh from the Indian Institute of Management Rohtak, Amit J. Chauradia from the University of South Florida, and Daniel M. Peat from the University of Cincinnati.
