``Too many businesses still believe in myths about employee turnover,'' said Richard S. Wellins, senior vice president of global consultants Development Dimensions International.

``Many organizations have taken some effective steps to retaining key employees, but far too many employers are ignoring valuable tools for keeping their best employees. More important, many employers are still far away from truly understanding what makes employees stay and what lures them - or drives them - into the arms of another company.''

Here are some of the myths, he said, that do the most to hamper employee retention efforts:

Myth: The retention problem is going away

Fact: Rather than going away, job turnover is going into overdrive. The DDI surveys show that 31 percent of employees are dissatisfied or neutral about their jobs.

Myth: Companies are doing everything they can to keep employees

Fact: In the DDI survey, 98 percent of human resources professionals admitted their organizations needed to do better at employee retention. In fact, only 44 percent said their organizations plan to overhaul the retention strategy in the upcoming year.

Myth: It's all about money

Fact: When employees ranked what was most important, money finished out of the money - it was only the fifth most important value. The most important values were, in order, the ability to balance work and outside life, the meaningfulness of work, trust among employees and the employees' relationship with their supervisor or manager.

Myth: Employees have stopped caring about organizational trust and loyalty

Fact: Ninety-nine percent of employees surveyed consider trust in the workplace to be important, but only 29 percent of those employees report a high level of trust within their current organization.

Myth: It doesn't cost much to hire a replacement

Fact: Human resources professionals estimated the average cost of replacing a manager at $30,000. This finding is similar to U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the base cost of replacing a worker is 30 percent of that person's annual earnings. Look more broadly at all the costs, DDI's research estimates the cost of a poor hiring decision for a highly skilled professional or leadership position to be $107,970.

Myth: Organizations put more effort into retaining managers than they do any other group of employees

Fact: The DDI survey showed that 41 percent of organizations that have a formal retention strategy are using it to retain employees with specialized skills, but only 27 percent use the same strategy to try to retain managers and executives.