A company is made up of people - having a great team of people is essential.
Hiring and retaining staff is critical to the success of any organization. The most brilliant of product ideas or soundly thought out strategies are useless without a capable and cohesive team to deliver the products and execute on those strategies.
Lots has been written and published over the years on hiring and retention strategies, and why people ultimately leave one job for another. We’ll touch on some of this in this point - but the bottom line is this:
Most of the time a person leaves one job for another because of their direct supervisor, or the leadership of the company.
People want to be paid fairly - “equal pay for work of equal value” is a commonly used refrain. Yes, most workers - junior, intermediate or senior, will not tolerate being grossly underpaid. But if there is job satisfaction in other areas noted below, then rarely will people leave solely for a pay increase. There is usually something else driving the decision to depart.
People want a safe and respectful work environment, free of verbal or physical harassment, free of any misogynistic activity. These characteristics for a workplace are essential for attracting and retaining good quality people.
Staff would prefer that there not be any office politics, but some of this is inevitable once the company’s team size exceeds 25-30 people. Most people with some work experience will come to expect some element of this, and politics or internal lobbying isn’t usually the sole reason for someone to leave.
Employees want to know their work product and efforts are valued and respected.
They would like recognition of accomplishments and efforts, from their immediate supervisor and to some extent from their departmental peers or even company-wide to some extent. Valuable members of the team will not regularly seek out public acknowledgement, but a psychological need is satisfied with recognition.
If the organization has people on the team whose primary driver is public accolades, then management or leadership should be reviewing that person’s position within the company. Ensuring a contingency plan is in place in the event that person is no longer with the company, whether it be voluntary or involuntary. Employees with public recognition as their primary motivator rarely remain with strong companies for long.
Valuable team members that remain with an organization for long periods of time are looking to apply their skills and efforts to meaning work projects. They want their duties and responsibilities to be interesting, to challenge them, and to help them further develop as a professional or a skilled trades person. This employee gets a high degree of job satisfaction from knowing the company is providing them with growth opportunities on a regular basis.
Every organization needs a foundation of solid workers who are happy to complete repetitive and routine tasks. Organizations grow and achieve their business objectives on the shoulders of team members who have goals and ambitions, and want to personally grow themselves.
So why do people leave their jobs? When people leave a company it is almost always attributed back to dissatisfaction with their supervisor or the leadership of the company.
Having an abusive or disrespectful supervisor will obviously lead to a departure by the person subject to the abuse. However, raising issues of abuse or disrespect that go unaddressed or uncorrected by a higher level manager or leader will also cause people to leave the organization.
Infact, this situation is worse. Other members of the team may be experiencing similar challenges with this supervisor. Even if this tension or issue is isolated to a single one-on-one relationship, other team members shall be watching how upper management are handling the situation. If senior leadership doesn’t address the issue(s) promptly and in an appropriate manner it’ll be seen more broadly as weak management and erode confidence across the employee group. This too could catalyze a number of departures.
A supervisor or senior leadership not being responsive or taking action when team members seek more challenging work and additional responsibility can also lead to departures. Employees with reasonable expectations and visibility of the organization won’t simply leave the company because they didn’t get a title bump or didn’t get to work on a particular project. If such requests are not handled promptly and with an open dialogue however, then frustration will set in with the employee towards the supervisor or senior management because of the way the matter was handled.
There is potential for a lack of trust arising with the supervisor and a lack of confidence that the employee’s interests aren’t front of mind for the manager. Again, if this person leaves the company it’ll be because of the way their supervisor dealt with them, as opposed to the specific work. They may claim they are moving to a job with more responsibility and more exciting work...and there may be an element of truth to this. But it’s more likely because their thirst for more challenge and personal growth wasn’t adequately addressed by the supervisor, or recognized on a timely basis by more senior leadership at the company.
And then there is pay or compensation. Sometimes departing employees will cite a large pay increase as the reason they left. Again, there is likely some truth to this...no one is going to be turned off by a huge raise! However, salary compensation is rarely the sole reason people leave a job. A new opportunity may be enticing because of the potential of a huge pay bump, however quality employees will always ensure the work environment, the leadership and especially the quality of work projects they will be involved with are an upgrade from their current role.
People leave their jobs because of dissatisfaction with the supervisor or the leadership of the company. If leaders take care of the people on the team, they will take care of the organization.
Thank you for investing time in reading this post. Questions and comments are always welcome.
Shail Paliwal
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