Why Do Good Employees Quit & How Can It Be Prevented?

Problem Statement:

Finding good employees is tough. Keeping them can often be even tougher. Losing a talented employee is hard, especially if you thought things were going well and it comes as a surprise. The employee-employer relationship can be a tricky one and hard to navigate. While employee turnover can often be frustrating and even a personal defeat, it always hurts your bottom line. In One Study 90% of managers surveyed said they thought most employees leave for better pay. However, another study found that 88% of employees who quit did so for something other than money. Clearly, there is often a disconnect between managers and employees about what motivates an employee to leave. Often poor management, overworking, and the absence of growth opportunities lie at the heart of an employee’s departure. While money may not be at the heart of an employee’s decision to leave, it will cost your company money, resources, and skills when talent leave. Losing best and talented employees is expensive and can often be prevented. Understanding the costs of employee departure to your company and the real reasons employees leave will help you prevent it.

 What Is Employee Turnover Really Costing Your Company?

When good talent leave it costs your company in many ways. From damage to morale if He/she was well-liked in the office, or lost skills (as well as the investments you made in helping him/her acquire those skills), to clients and institutional knowledge there are many risks to your company when an employee leaves.

 Beyond the more intangible losses, it costs money to lose talent. How much? According to data drawn from 30 case studies taken from 11 research papers on the costs of employee turnover, it costs at least 20% of their salary when an employee leaves. These costs reflect the loss of productivity from the departure, the cost of finding a replacement, and the reduced productivity while the new employee gets up to speed. If you are a small business with multiple employees leaving each year these numbers can add up quickly and make a big dent in your budget.

Just because losing employees costs real money, doesn’t mean the other effects including lower morale are less important. A company culture where employees are constantly leaving will inevitably lead to higher turnover. Keeping people at your company and keeping them happy there will encourage more people to stay. The trick is understanding how to do that.

In looking to prevent good employees from leaving it is important to understand why they quit in the first place. There may be many reasons but the following are found to be more common

Poor Management:

Many people like to say, “People don’t leave jobs, they leave managers,” and it is true. The manager is the company’s first point of contact with an employee, if that contact is bad, the relationship with the company will be bad and the employee won’t stay long. Often it isn’t about someone being an inherently “bad manager” but rather having poor management practices. Luckily, many of these can be fixed.

Bad managers don’t listen to employees, treat them with respect, fight for them, or show them appreciation. Good managers always make sure they have time to hear from an employee, they listen to what they say and they take action to improve problems when they arise. Good managers can teach their subordinates, they can help them grow, and they know that the success of the company ultimately depend on the success of its employees.

Good managers are teachers and coaches, not bosses. You will earn the respect and loyalty you show your employees and they will work harder because of it. They will also stay at your company longer.

Overworked And Overwhelmed:

Now, if you want people to stay at your company longer in terms of years you don’t want them staying at the office longer in terms of hours and days. Employees who are overworked are overwhelmed, unproductive, and unhappy. All things that will make them more likely to look elsewhere for work.

According to some studies, “approximately 40% of all workers today feel overworked, pressured and squeezed to the point of anxiety, depression and disease, and 63% of Americans report they are not coping effectively with stress,” says business psychologist and HR consultant Dr. Tiffany Sanders. On top of this, there is, according to Dr. Travis Bradberry, “New research from Stanford shows that productivity per hour declines sharply when the workweek exceeds 50 hours, and productivity drops off so much after 55 hours that you don’t get anything out of working more.”

Anything you as a manager can do to increase efficiency and help employees do their work better can help. This all adds up to happier employees.

Lack of Opportunities for Growth and Development:

Ultimately, for many employees true happiness isn’t about a good manager or getting home early, it is about growing and developing as an employee and person. If you can’t grow at your job you are not likely to stay there. People want to be inspired and then receive the opportunities to act on that inspiration. If you don’t provide them, they will find someone who does. Especially your best employees.

“ULTIMATELY, FOR MANY EMPLOYEES TRUE HAPPINESS ISN’T ABOUT A GOOD MANAGER OR GETTING HOME EARLY, IT IS ABOUT GROWING AND DEVELOPING AS AN EMPLOYEE AND PERSON.”

You need to seek employee input and learn what they want to do and what skills they want to develop. Many employees may have ideas for new responsibilities and tasks they could take on if you ask them. Ultimately, as a manager, you need to decide what roles you want them to fill but it can be helpful to get their opinion and if you can’t give them exactly what they want at least you can try to give part of it, or explain what needs to happen for them to get the role they want.

At the end of the day, keeping good employees requires constant attention and care, kind of like running your business. You need to be attentive to employee needs and issues and you need to create an atmosphere of trust and respect. It isn’t always easy, but the rewards are good for your business and good for your employees.

How can you prevent it?

You can’t afford to lose your best talents, it says “Hire the Best & Forget the Rest “ Employee retention begins during the job interview process. We are not talking about making a good first impression (Though that’s part of it).  No matter how much you want to keep an employee on and no matter how much you do to influence their decision to stay, ultimately the employee is the one who decide to stay or exit. Its bit of a balancing act and the only time you can directly influence the employee’s side of the equation is when you hire them, after that it’s too late. So, do as Kyle Lagunas says “Hire the retainable employee”.

Every area of the employer - employee relationship in our organisation deserves your attention. Embrace these key strategies to improve organisation’s employee retention and boast the employee satisfaction and prevent last moment surprises,,,,,

• Talent Magnetism:

o   Talent Magnetism is nothing but Reach, Reputation and experience

o   Build your work place that attracts and keep the best

• Visible and clear communication:

o   Across verticals and horizontals

o   Wirearcly - Criss cross reporting, Hierarchy less

o   Policy making keeping employee needs and balancing with organisational goals, make it live and breathing

• Enable Opportunities for the top talent to grow:

o   Succession planning- future ready

o   Career plan for the stipulated time frame

o   Nurture leadership

• Encourage Active Listening in the organisation:

o   Listen to “unsaid” in the organisation

o   Formal and informal leadership connects

o   Bringing cognisance of business situation/know-how

• Recognition and reward systems:Every person wants to feel appreciated for what they do

o Make it a habit to THANK employees when they go extra miles to achieve organisational goals, could be with sincere email /a gift

o   Show them and share how their hard work helps the organisation

o   Set up a rewards system for Talents/team that incentivize great ideas and Innovation

Conclusion:

In Business, take care of people that take care of you! Good employees are an investment into your company’s future.   Of course you hope they turn out profitable, like you would a monetary investment, but this doesn’t happen by accident.  Hire good managers, don’t overwork or overload employees and allow everyone to grow professionally.  Take care of the people that take care of business and watch you’re most important company investment pay off.

It’s my first article on HR subject, I would like to thank Suresh Pugalenthi and Sandhya Gunnikuntla of Wipro HR team for their unflinching support and giving the article a good shape.

Arif Mohammad, ME CMgr FCMI CEng MIET

Chief Technologist – Hydraulic Actuation System

Chartered Engineer & Manager-UK