Stable employees ensure stability for the entire company
No matter how it may seem at first glance, in reality, some of these employees are neither weak nor passive. These are people who do not create dramas, do not always speak loudly in meetings, but support processes, know the company’s history, understand informal rules, and ensure that daily work proceeds without constant crises.
“Business needs not only people who generate ideas but also those who make them happen. A stable employee is often not the most visible, but they reduce chaos, the likelihood of errors, and the burden on managers. In the service sector, with artificial intelligence taking over more and more tasks, this topic will become even more relevant,” says Andžej Rynkevič, head of the outsourcing company Baltic Assist.
A decade ago, stability was often confused with a lack of ambition: if a person works in the same position for a long time, it means they are “not growing.” Now it is increasingly seen that growth means a deeper understanding of the process, the ability to train others, fewer mistakes, better customer knowledge, or a calm ability to resolve situations that would seem like a crisis to a new employee.
Employee turnover is one of the biggest expenses
One of the most important arguments is that employee turnover is costly. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the average cost of hiring one employee is nearly 4.1 thousand euros, but some employers calculate that the total cost of searching for and onboarding a new person can reach three or four times the salary for that position. This includes not only job advertisements or recruitment but also managers’ time, colleagues’ help, and mistakes made by the newcomer.
It is especially difficult to replace employees whose value lies not only in the job description. For example, accounting, customer service, administration, logistics, project coordination, or internal communication specialists often perform work that seems routine from the outside.
However, they are precisely the ones who know which client reacts sensitively to delays, which supplier is better asked for written confirmation, how the process really works, not just how it is described in internal documents.
“Replacing such a person just by searching by CV is impossible. You can find another specialist, but you cannot recreate five years of organizational memory in a week. Therefore, managers sometimes realize too late that a stable employee was not just an executor but a supporter of the company’s system. Such a person understands the client’s history, knows sensitive points, can react in time, and maintain trust,” says A. Rynkevič.
It is important to distinguish a stable employee from a person who just “shows up” during working hours. If an employee does not take responsibility, resists any changes, does not help the team, and only protects their own comfort, they are not very valuable.
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Recognition and appreciation are extremely important
If a stable employee maintains processes for years but receives neither recognition, growth opportunities, nor a clear signal that their work is important, they may begin to feel invisible.
The 2025 LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report states that only 36% of organizations have mature career development programs that deliver business results. Such organizations are more likely to trust their ability to retain qualified employees – 67%, compared to 50% among other organizations.
This means that an employee does not have to become a manager to grow. According to the OECD database, the average length of employment at one workplace in Lithuania in 2024 was about 9.1 years. For such an employee, the company can provide more responsibility and recognition without forcing them to become a manager if they do not want to.
Investing in long-term employees pays off. “Although there is much talk about rapid career changes, a significant number of people still work for a long time in the same organizations. The question is whether companies know how to turn this stability into an advantage, to utilize such people in the growth stage by involving them in changes and decision-making,” says Kristina Margytė-Žvirblė, Human Resources Manager at Baltic Assist.
When a business expands, attention often shifts to new products, new markets, sales, or investments. However, growth also creates more operational complexity.
Nevertheless, stable employees must be involved in changes, training, and decision-making. If a person has worked with a process for a long time, they often see best where the system is stuck. But for this, managers need to ask not only the opinions of the most ambitious or loudest employees but also those who see the real work mechanism every day.
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