5 Reasons Why Great Employees Leave
The 35th edition of the World at Work’s annual budget survey found that the 2008 actual average increase in salary budgets was 3.9%, and the survey projects a 3.9% increase again in 2009. After sharing these numbers, Kris Dunn, the HR Capitalist asked “Is a 5% raise enough to protect your superstars?”
I emphatically agree with Kris when he said “NO!” though not because I think 5% is a bad annual raise. To me, whether it’s 5% or 25%, the pay isn’t really the problem for your superstars. If your star employee is leaving, there are any number of reasons why they are leaving, with pay being the easiest one to say that isn’t your fault because money can easily be blamed on the organization.
So why do you keep losing your superstars? Here’s a few reasons that came to my mind right away.
- Boredom with day-to-day responsibilities – If your superstar is doing the same thing, day after day, night after night, she is going to get bored and she is going to leave you for something that is more challenging and more rewarding.
- No career possibilities – If your your superstar sees no way of moving around in your company, then she will leave you for someplace that she can have more opportunities.
- Unsure of companies future – If you just announced you’re thinking about outsourcing your team’s work, or you just announced record losses for the 3rd quarter in a row, your best people are going to leave you for a company that provides more stability.
- Lack of communication from you about good (or bad) things – You might think ignoring your best employee sends the signal that “no news is good news” but most superstars think if you’re not talking to them you’re mad at them, or worse, that they’re doing something wrong so they change from good behavior to bad. Invest some extra time caring and feeding your superstars or they will leave you for someone who will.
- You suck as a manager – If you’re not the manager your superstar employee needs you to be, she/he will leave you for someone she/he thinks is. In my experience, people don’t leave companies, they leave their managers! Yes, you can’t be everything to everybody, but as a manager, you need to give your superstars what they want and need.
If you’re a superstar, what would make you leave your job?
- Would money do it?
- What about one of the 5 reasons I mentioned?
- Something else?
Feel free to be anonymous in the comments if it’ll help get this conversation going.
Flickr photo credit to Scarequotes
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POSTED IN: Phil Gerbyshak, principles
13 opinions for 5 Reasons Why Great Employees Leave
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Aug 4, 2008 at 4:35 am
[…] поради които един човек би напуснал. Phil Gerbyshak ни предлага 5 от тях, като акцентира върху това, че става въпрос за важни и […]
CK
Aug 4, 2008 at 9:25 am
What about jealousy, envy, and back-stabbing? Sometimes change in upper management and culture can make things difficult to say.
In my case, an advanced degree only made my tolerable situation worse. As another manager stated regarding my division as compared to “a pit of snakes.”
As to the list ..
Boredom with day-to-day responsibilities - Management would give “opportunities” which is another word for punishment.
No career possibilities - When you are qualified for the position but are overlooked because his/her friends are on the interview board. Then you are told to train them so that do their job that you applied for.
Lack of communication from you about good (or bad) things - THAT’S the managers job! Instead they withold vitial information and dispite your asking for the required information, watch you fail on projects!
And last - the “super-stars” are leaving due to neglect and abuse. One client department is upset that they fired one of our stars because she made everyone else look bad in their abilities. Now the client complains that they can’t get good service like they had. But we are paying lower and lower wages for new-hires and you get what you pay for!
CK
Aug 4, 2008 at 9:35 am
One more thing … our contractors come and go - it is a revolving door. Some contractors have even refused working here because of the reputation we are getting. Contractors are treated like third-class people.
Phil Gerbyshak
Aug 4, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Interesting notes CK. Thanks for sharing them. I hate backstabbing, though as a manager, that’s a pit I won’t go near!
CK
Aug 5, 2008 at 2:47 am
Of all the books and articles written by experts in the field of leadership, management, and business, my division runs counter to their advice.
My division has gone through several of the “Improvement Programs” like “Fish” only to fail. The reason is that the divisional culture is self-serving at best. The very top echelon are just now looking into passing some “ethics” guildlines but is stuck in debate.
Upper management are known to lie and have lost all credibility. Quartarly meetings have become mandatory because no one is willing to go to them on their own. This causes more people to arrange doctor appointments during this time than any other time of the year.
Instead of simplifying things they add layers of bureaucracy rather than getting things done. For an example, what use to take 10 minutes now takes two weeks to accomplish - much to the frustration of the customers.
Michael Haberman, SPHR
Aug 5, 2008 at 4:33 am
Good post Phil. Just one correction. Kris Dunn at HR Capitalist is a Male, not a Female. :-)
Phil Gerbyshak
Aug 5, 2008 at 7:39 pm
CK - Hope you get out of there.
Michael - Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll fix that.
CK
Aug 6, 2008 at 2:27 am
@Phil - I’m working on that but the local economy is pretty poor around here. I have a friend in Microsoft who is looking for me as well. My friend was trapped here for some time before escaping to MS! My friend was in for a culture shock with MS - they are actually friendly (compared to the hostile area we worked in)!
I am currently rebuilding my website and thinking of building another general site and asking for friends/former classsmates who are looking for jobs as well and to join their sites as links … just have to come up with a site name …
Fitzzzgerald
Aug 6, 2008 at 8:18 am
My 2 cents:
Superstars (and any good employee really) will absolutely leave over money, if they are not getting compensated fairly. If you are not paying market value for your superstar you are tacitly saying you do not value them. So if there is a superstar employee don’t make the mistake of giving them the ’standard’ 3-7% raise because they are worth much more than that, and it costs a heckuva lot more to replace them.
Other things that drive off superstars are work environments where they are criticized unfairly or where there is a lack of trust from management. Micromanagement will do it too.
An obstinate, slow-moving company drives away star employees too. People who overachieve want to make a difference and a company that stymies and stalls improvement and change will frustrate star employees. When they find a place where they can make more of a difference they’ll go there.
Losing Top Performers — it isn’t ALWAYS your fault « Crossderry Blog
Aug 6, 2008 at 8:52 am
[…] there’s a title to aspire to) hits on five reasons why great employees leave organizations (here). Phil’s reasons are perfectly valid, but losing stars isn’t always a […]
CK
Aug 6, 2008 at 10:55 am
As I had said above - we lost a ’star’ due to past abuse of this person. Now they are realizing how much this one person did and knew. All the while the ones who knew of the abuse are cheering for her escape … and that there is hope for the rest of us still here!
CN
Aug 7, 2008 at 5:22 pm
What about morally bankrupt management? For example: Management keeps the town idiot at a very senior position because he fooled them years ago and now that his knowledge gaps can no longer fool people management continues to turn a blind eye - because they put him there! At the end of the day no developer like being handed the time bombs coded by this guy; His work just plain sucks. But delusional management still pumps the mantra of how great this fool is but other developers know better.
Note to the delusional manager: Eventually the good developers will tire of this routine and exit. Do something quick and either demote this clown or promote the others less you’ll be left with the dead sea effect. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/12/2241216&from=rss
RegularJoe
Aug 14, 2008 at 9:06 am
My take is that, all things being nearly equal, people ultimately leave a job because they don’t “enjoy” it. Why would they not enjoy their job?…their work is not valued, their supervisor is irrationally demanding, poor workplace communications and inability to link their contribution to overarching goals, “friction” among employees, festering problems that are not addressed,… The single most important step a company can do, is to either select their first-line and second-line supervisors to be skilled communicators with an understanding of both the technical work and human behavior…or provide strong interpersonal communications training. The ultiimate goal is for the employee to look forward to coming to work.
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