Why Employees Quit: What HR Should Know

When people leave their jobs, it’s easy to point a finger at others, be it the management or the employees. But what could be the real reasons? And how do we solve them? Most employees leave not because of one small incident, but from a combination of disappointments, frustrations and false promises that led them to quit.

Employee turnover is not desirable but it’s impossible to avoid. It’s not only expensive, it can become a plague that destroys your teams from inside.

Here are a few reasons why people leave their jobs:

1. Incompetent managers

We start with the most important relationship in the workplace, the one between the employee and their manager. The manager needs an employee who performs effectively and efficiently while the employee looks for personal growth and support from their managers.

A good manager will give employees the freedom to grow, mentor them and make their daily work enjoyable. A bad manager holds them back and makes them unhappy.

Solution:

No one is born a leader, and it’s impossible to be the perfect leader. Managing people is a repetitive process that takes years to master. Businesses should focus their efforts in guiding and developing managers to handle potential situations that may arise.

2. Fulfilling the employees’ needs

What really drives people to work? Is it to fulfill personal needs or is it survivability and financial security?

click on the image for a larger version.

Employers need to address the demotivators as explained in the diagram above. Recognitions are nice to have, but what really matters are security and survival needs of the employees. A good employee who feels undervalued would look out at greener pastures, if their security and survival needs are not taken care of.

Nowadays there’s a dire need for skilled labour. Technology and artificial intelligence are taking over many jobs, and worsen the global shortage of skilled workers. This means that employees have gained the upper hand in salary negotiation.

Solution:

Employers don’t need to overcompensate their employees, but they should not be reluctant when it comes to merit increases.

Providing yearly adjustments on part with inflation rate is not the way forward. It does not help an individual to reach the next level of engagement, as in reality there isn’t any increment in real wages and does not meet their survivability needs.

Look beyond inflation rates to rightly compensate your employees against competitive and fair salary bands within your industry. The total cost of this movement could very well be a fraction of the turnover cost in the long run.

3. The job without a future

Has it ever occurred to you why some things you’ve done at work feel old? You keep doing the same thing over and over, while the job load increases and it feels like the job lost the human aspect of doing things.

By referring to Maslow’s Hierarchy level again, past the survivability and security layers, the next step to engagement calls for the need to be a part of a team, and seeing a future with the organisation. The sense of belonging to the organisation starts from the nature of work each employee does over a course of a workday. It’s only when employees fail to see a clear path or future in the organisation will they feel that there’s no point working there anymore.

If you do not provide employees with the opportunity for challenge and engaging work, you will lose these employees too. They don’t want a micromanager who limits their growth and their innovative ideas. They want to have the ability to make their own decisions and the opportunity to be the expert in their own job.

Solution:

Conduct regular employee pulse checks, always listen and engage with everyone through their team managers or even having HR teams to listen to employees’ woes on a personal level.

This helps to build a strong level of trust and engagement with employees. Their goals and concerns can be identified and their problems can be solved before it’s too late.  

Exit interviews are important because this is where businesses can gather information about why employees quit. It is a sharing session on the employees’ reasons for the exit, so HR should be wary not to burn bridges. Look beyond their politically correct answers to find the legitimate sore points. Focus on their tenure, and what kept them going throughout their time with you.

Whether people leave because of their jobs or their managers, in the end, it’s an exit within the business. The business needs to design jobs and an employee experience that are too good to leave. This comes down to managers themselves.

When you care about your employees’ happiness, their success, their careers and their lives, they will enjoy their  job and it will be hard for them to imagine working anywhere else. Ready to hire your next staff? Post a job now at www.ajobthing.com

This article is based on Workplace Reboot: Why People Quit on You by Raymond Soh.