Why Do Employees Leave?
There has been a lot written on what causes turnover. From a review of the literature, it seems to boil down to three main causes:
- Employees leave for higher pay (63% on a Pew Research Study)
- Feeling unappreciated or disrespected. This is also referred to as a “toxic work culture.” Pew states that 57% gave this as a reason, but CNBC states (based on a study from Glassdoor and MIT) that a toxic work culture is “10 times more important than pay in predicting turnover.” As we noted in our last blog, 70% of employees in a survey said they would leave their jobs for an organization that had resources to reduce burnout. So however you say it, how employee’s feel treated is a critical factor.
- Lack of advancement/career opportunities – managers are focused on retaining employees. Often, when an employee is ready to move on, managers don’t talk with them about career opportunities elsewhere in the company, so the employees leave to get ahead.
There are many other causes cited, but these three seem to be stated most often. Let us know if you see other critical causes. Now, read on for the Cure!
The Positive Side of Turnover???
Before we look at what an organization can do about these key causes, an interesting side note is that there may be some positive benefits to small amounts of turnover. Turnover can promote innovation, shake up rigid organizations and help them better adapt. However in the current climate, these benefits are probably outweighed by the difficulty in recruiting new employees… but it is something to consider!
The Key to Motivation:
Many years ago, Frederick Herzberg identified two types of motivators:
- Things that were necessary for employees to be satisfied, and
- Things that truly motivated people to higher performance.
Pay, benefits and job security all fall into the satisfier category. Without adequate pay, benefits or security, people would be dissatisfied and leave, but if you kept increasing these, while people would be more and more satisfied and probably won’t leave, they may not necessarily work harder (except for people paid on “piece rate”).
So the first factor often cited for turnover – adequate pay is important, but is not enough to retain high performers. And higher pay somewhere else, while it will tempt people, is often not enough to cause them to leave, if the other two factors are strong. You know what you can afford to pay, so we’re not going to pursue that, but let’s look at the other two factors – feeling respected and career advancement. The nice thing about these, is that they are very much in the supervisor’s sphere of influence, where pay often is not.
Feeling Respected vs Toxic Work Environment
Most managers tell me that they respect and appreciate their good workers and they regularly let their staff know this. However, most employees tell me they don’t get much appreciation or recognition and often feel disrespected! How can this be?
There are several common reasons:
- The manager may think good thoughts about their employees, but doesn’t actually say them out loud.
- The manager is showing respect and appreciation in the ways they know best, and these are not landing well with the employees.
- The manager is suffering from the toxic work culture as well, and abdicates their leadership role and fails to support their team.
The Keys to Success
Regular Feedback
The first item above is the easiest to fix. Managers could keep a simple log, it could be a spreadsheet. List your employees and note every time you actually give them positive feedback or a thank you. Note which employees you might be shortchanging due to lack of regular contact or because they are not an all-star. You may see over time that you are not giving as much feedback as you think you are, and this is easy to correct.
Be intentional and strategic to make sure you have some regular contact with all of your team members, and remember that people are paid to do their job, not be an all-star. So your middle performers should be recognized for their solid performance as well. (If you are an employee with a manager who doesn’t give much recognition, share this with them and set up the spreadsheet as a gift!)
How to Give Feedback
The second item I think is the deepest and most common problem. Positive feedback needs to be tailored to each person. I can see supervisors rolling their eyes – we have enough to do and now we have to spoon feed the feedback to each employee? Actually, yes. But it’s not spoon feeding; it is being strategic and delivering the feedback in a way that will make it powerful and motivational so the result will be high performance. It is an investment of time and energy, but one that pays good dividends.
I was once working with a leadership team whose greatest complaint was that they felt unappreciated by the CEO. I was coaching the CEO and knew that he felt good about his team and the quality of their work. I suggested he take more time to let his staff know this. The next time I checked back with the team they said, “We know you spoke with Joe about giving us more feedback. He walks around all day saying ‘good job, good job’, which is really meaningless!”
It’s what you do (give feedback) and how you do it (be intentional and strategic) that makes this successful. We’ve got another article in the works to go deeper into how to give effective feedback, but for now, remember to provide context – tell them: what did they do exactly, and why it was positive. Describe the positive impact of their actions. Remember, it doesn’t have to be heroic to be appreciated! Good solid work, reliably done, is worth a thoughtful thank you.
How Else Do You Show Appreciation?
Another way to show appreciation and respect is to regularly ask your staff for their input on decisions affecting the team. You don’t have to follow their input, but do try to work it in. Thank them for their input and if you can’t use it, let them know that and explain why. Again, this is a bit more work, a bit more intentionality, but it pays dividends not just in terms of motivation, but also… your staff are often closer to the work than you are, and they may have some very valuable insights!
The 3rd common reason why people leave their jobs – lack of career advancement, provides another opportunity to show appreciation and increase motivation. While there may be few actual openings, if you take the time to help your team build their skills and prepare for advancement, they will be appreciative and feel appreciated. People who are learning new things in a constructive way are generally motivated to stay with their job and motivated to keep working hard. So this one is a win-win as well!
Some managers say if they develop their staff too much, the staff will leave for higher level jobs. That’s true, but there are several benefits here:
- Until they leave they will work hard
- They probably won’t be actively looking if they are happy
- Others on the team will see that if they work hard you will help them get ahead as well
- You will have a pool of skilled employees ready to move up when openings do occur (succession planning)
Burned Out Managers and the Bubble Strategy
And finally, the third cause we noted why people feel disrespected and unappreciated: the manager is suffering from the toxic work culture as well. In this case managers may abdicate their leadership role and fail to support their team. The solution to this one is a strategy I call the “bubble theory of leadership”. Sometimes we do work in a toxic environment and when we abdicate our leadership, we spread the toxicity around.
The bubble strategy suggests we create a bubble around our team and insulate them from the toxicity. We need to work extra hard to let them know how much we appreciate them. (I’m seeing that eye roll again, but stay with me…) Yes this takes even more energy, but the great news is that you will get support from below if you don’t get it from above. Your team will appreciate you! They’ll see the effort you make, they’ll appreciate that, and they’ll do what they can to support you and work hard for you. In a toxic environment, you won’t get support from above, so work to get it from below. It’s just as positive.
While there are many causes of turnover and many solutions, we’ve identified a few key ones that answer the question: what causes turnover, and we’ve given you some tools to implement them. One final note, as in all my blogs – the T.E.A.M. Communication Styles® model shows us that one size does not fit all, so as you look to give feedback, provide career guidance and give work direction, you need to read your employees and respond to them in the way they want to be treated – that’s the Golden Rule 2.0. ® It’s not easy, but it’s powerful!
If you haven’t checked out our T.E.A.M. Communication Styles® tool, take a look – it’s the key to using the Golden Rule 2.0®.
This is a big topic and we’ll write more about turnover and retention. You can also look back at an article we wrote last year on this topic for more suggestions. We’d love to hear from you about your strategies and challenges. Drop us a line.
