Anyone who has been in the workforce for a few years has experienced working with someone who is a superstar. He or she excels in their position, works hard toward company goals, achieves personal goals, takes on additional assignments, engages in team building activities, etc. Everything seems perfect...but then they leave to work somewhere else. What happened?
There are many reasons why good employees leave to work for a different company. Believe it or not, money is not always a deciding factor. If you are currently facing high employee turnover, perhaps it is time to examine the factors listed below and find ways to improve.
1. Lack of Leadership
Perhaps one of the most difficult challenges is poor leadership. Employees want to feel confident in who is "steering the ship." If there is a lack of leadership or lack of confidence in the leadership, employees will get on board a different ship.
Good leaders grow their employees and encourage them to learn. They clearly communicate the corporate vision and engage employees to work toward achieving a shared goal. They motivate rather than degrade. Great leaders are confident but honest. They are inspiring and committed and this inspires commitment from the people they lead. They empower people to make decisions and become autonomous.
When managers complain about dedication or commitment from employees, this is usually a direct reflection of how people feel about the leadership in the company. If the leaders are uninspiring, incompetent, control freaks or if they lack focus, people will not have the passion required to do their best.
2. Ignoring Basic Needs
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a psychological theory describing human needs. There are 5 tiers and the theory suggests that the needs lower down on the pyramid must be satisfied before a person can focus on the needs that are higher on the pyramid.
Motivation increases when the needs are not fulfilled. For instance, the longer a person stays awake, the more motivated they are to sleep. If you are awake for 24 hours, you really want to go to sleep. Once you get to 36 hours without sleep, you are even more
motivated to sleep and so on.
Continuing further with the pyramid, once Psychological Needs such as breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing and sleep are more or less satisfied, only then can a person focus on their Safety and Security Needs. This idea continues up the pyramid to Love and Belonging, Self-Esteem and Self-Actualization Needs.
How does this apply in an organization and how does it relate to employee retention? Managers should want people who are at a level of self-actualization. These people are working to their fullest potential. They are creative, fulfilled, etc. It is in the interest of an organization to help its employees fulfill each of the other levels of needs so people are able to work to their fullest potential.
What can a company do? There are several ideas but this list is not exhaustive:
Pay a decent living wage to ensure employees can eat, pay for shelter, buy clothes, etc.
Provide adequate health insurance.
Ensure job security.
Encourage workplace professional relationships to make people feel involved.
Recognize achievements honestly and regularly.
3. Little or No Career Development
One area I have seen companies fail is career development for employees. Managers and executives expect dedication and commitment from employees. Unfortunately, if a company is not dedicated and committed to their employees, they will be stuck with people who simply do the minimum work required.
The kind of people employers want also have the desire to grow in their career and progress in terms of responsibility, title, and pay. As long as these things are missing, the hard workers and overachievers will continue to leave.
Typically, those great employees know they are great. Why should someone stay and dedicate themselves to a company who does not care about their employees' future? They know their worth and they will go to a company that invests in them.
What does this look like in the real world? If an organization is filled with unmotivated individuals who lack passion about their job, this is an important indicator that they feel they do not have a future there. They were hired for one position and there is little or no room for growth. They do not care. This is a tragedy for companies. The great people you want to keep will leave for career advancement, better pay and more diverse opportunities and you will be stuck with the underachievers and under-performers. The sad thing is managers then expect these "under-s" to be dedicated and work hard.
4. No Sense of Purpose
Most individuals want to be part of something bigger than themselves. People are not robots. You cannot expect someone to put their heart into their work if there is no purpose or if they do not know the purpose.
This is difficult without inspiring leadership that is transparent and focused. Regularly sharing the company vision, objectives, health of the organization and how the work ties into these things is crucial. Without a deep sense of purpose, it will be challenging for employees to wholeheartedly try their best.
5. Un-Sharing Ideas
Excited people tend to have amazing ideas. Unfortunately, ideas are only useful if you can act on them and/or share them. If companies fail to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, employees will eventually take their fantastic ideas somewhere else.
Simply providing the forum is not enough. Hearing ideas but then ignoring them can sometimes be worse than not listening to them at all. There needs to be a way for employees to propose new ideas and discuss ways to implement the changes. An atmosphere of trust must be present as well as the opportunity to try something that might fail. Employees who fear failure will not share their creativity openly.
People also must be empowered to take action. Few things in the world are worse than having a great idea that you cannot implement.
"Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients." - Richard Branson
If your organization is having trouble attracting and retaining exemplary employees, that is simply a symptom of a bigger problem or perhaps several problems. The five topics above are not an exhaustive list of causes for high turnover but addressing these five topics will definitely move the company in the right direction.
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