Why Do Good Employees Leave Their Company?

When good workers leave, productivity sinks, morale suffers, and co-workers struggle with increased workloads. Add in hiring and training costs, and onboarding new employees can make for a challenging and costly transition.

The best approach is to keep your workers satisfied so they don't leave. But before you can execute a plan to improve employee retention, you must discover why precious employees are going away. 

Here are the most popular reasons employees switch to new employers.

1. They're not engaged

According to an August 2018 Gallup report, 53 per cent of the workforce are not engaged. The workers may be satisfied in general but are not connected to their work and workplace. They will regularly show up to work and do the bare minimum but will immediately leave their organisation for a slightly better offer.

Assessing employee disengagement demands engagement and empathy from the manager, which can be difficult to spot. Are these workers withdrawing from social activities? Do they call in sick more than usual? Are they performing the bare minimum to get by?

2. Management trouble

Most employees don't quit their jobs; they quit their managers. Managing teams as a whole is challenging. You have to manage each individual, and invest time into discovering what they need both at work and outside of work to complete their tasks effectively.

Do your workers feel like they're all "in this together"? Do they feel their ideas, issues and challenges are acknowledged and acted on? Do they feel valued?

Simply listening to your workers' concerns and doing what you can to address those can go a long way.

3. Unprepared supervisors

It's not rare for a supervisor to be a highly skilled technician who's ill-equipped to deal with management's demands and nuances.

Skills that make a worker a great software developer or coder, for instance, are entirely different from those required to be a good manager. You need to provide the right training and guidance to help your supervisors lead and manage their team members.

4. No room to grow

One of the primary reasons top employees leave is because they feel their career advancement is not going as planned.

It does not matter if they like what they're working on, who they're working with and are paid fairly, the employees have to feel there's something in it for them. Otherwise, they will be tempted to find a new employer elsewhere or be attractive to recruiters.

Always stay updated with your employees so they know that you care about them.

5. You're not keeping up with the technology 

Keeping your technology updated can help keep valuable workers engaged in the direction the organisation's going.

If new technology isn't in the budget, you can consider sending workers to outside training on cutting-edge tech even if you are unable to use them in your organisation. That will emphasise that you value their education and skillsets.

6. You're not checking in regularly

Suppose your managers aren't offering constructive feedback regularly or don't talk about career goals at least once a year with employees. In that case, your organisation is at risk of falling out of touch with your talent. The more regularly you can have performance discussions, the easier it is to catch and correct a problem and support excellent behaviour or performance. 

7. Your company policies are too strict

Telecommuting and flexible scheduling have become more popular in tech companies, but not yet in other sectors.Flexible work time and the ability to become a virtual employee are so popular that they have become an expectation. 

Research from Dice.com says that telecommuting is the most-wanted benefit tech professionals are looking for. 

8. You're not helping the employees' work-life balance

Paying attention to workers' struggles to handle work and home life can go a long way toward keeping them. It's often the little gestures that work best.

By always inviting feedback, listening to workers' concerns and working that into the fabric of everyday life, both for the company and for workers' home lives, you can make sure you're keeping and nurturing the best and brightest talent.

Hopefully, this article can help you to detect these issues before they happen in your organisation. 

Source: CIO

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