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Top Ten Reasons Why People Quit Their Jobs

OVERVIEW: There are many reasons why good employees quit and most of them are preventable. Here are the top ten reasons why people leave jobs and practical measures you can take to help ensure they don’t occur within your company.

TAKEOUTS:

  1. Effective people management is crucial. Often people don’t quit their jobs – they quit their bosses.
  2. In order to prevent employees from leaving you must take the time to understand what’s important to them, and tailor the job to meet both their needs and the company’s objectives.
  3. Ensure your company takes the time to learn from departing employees via independently run exit interviews. Make sure these results are summarised and distributed back to Management.

Every time an employee resigns, it costs your company time, money and effort to replace them. Research suggests that the cost of staff turnover is approximately one and a half times the departing employee’s salary, and with an estimated 25% of the workforce planning to change jobs over the next twelve months it’s not hard to see why staff retention has become a major priority for many New Zealand and Australian employers.

While most experts agree that some level of employee turnover is inevitable, even essential in order to attract new ideas, energy and enthusiasm into a business, consistently high levels of staff turnover negatively impact both the bottom-line and staff morale. Furthermore, a company that has a constant stream of departing employees does not inspire confidence in their clients or within the industry in which they operate. So with this in mind, how do you keep your turnover under control? Hire wisely, understand why people are leaving, and then make changes to prevent your current employees from leaving for the same reasons.

The Top Ten Reasons Why People Quit Their Jobs

Why do employees quit their jobs? Our research has shown that the main reasons why people leave their jobs tend to fall into one of the following ten categories:

  1. Under-staffing – are your employees expected to carry an unrealistic workload that sees them working long hours day after day without respite or promise of a better future?
  2. Poor Communication – are management communicating with staff in an open, transparent and timely manner?
  3. Lack of Challenge – are departing employees saying that they needed more responsibility, and do they seek opportunities that just don't exist in your current organisation?
  4. Lack of Empowerment – Are staff empowered to make reasonable decisions in their job? Or is micro-management the rule?
  5. No Recognition – Are employees being recognised for their efforts, over and above their pay packet? Does this recognition occur in both ‘Manager-to-employee’ and ‘Manager-to-team’ situations?
  6. Limited Work-Life Options – Are you flexible with job sharing, maternity / paternity / study leave; are employees able to work part-time or from a home office?
  7. Poor Company Culture – Are there ethical issues at conflict with what the company says its culture represents and how it actually operates?
  8. The Employee’s Life Situation Has Changed – Have departing employees just married or had a baby; are their salary and benefits no longer supportive of their life needs?
  9. Questionable Promotional Practices – Has management promoted someone who lacks the training and/or necessary experience to supervise, alienating staff and driving away good employees?
  10. No Enjoyment – Have departing employees simply stopped having fun at work and enjoying their jobs?

The ‘People Management’ Effect

When considered at a macro level, all of the ten reasons identified above stem from some degree of poor people management; managers who are ineffective at providing an environment that works for their employees. Jo Mithen, CEO of the Australian Human Resources Institute, believes that “there are elements of truth in that people don’t leave bad jobs so much as they leave bad managers”. Mithen acknowledges that some people simply don’t make good managers. In short, having expertise or ability in a profession does not automatically translate into good people management ability. “Poor management is certainly one issue with staff retention”, she says.

An accountant at a large professional services company who agreed to speak on the proviso he remain anonymous, stated: “I will be as loyal to my employer as they are to me – but at the end of the day, I’m out of here. I quite like the work I was hired to do, and my colleagues are okay, but I can’t stand my manager’s passive-aggressive behaviour and the fact that despite constantly achieving my KPI’s, I am never, ever complimented on doing a good job”.

Understand what’s important

Whilst the reasons for high staff turnover can be many and varied, what is clear is that in order to prevent high performers from leaving you must take the time to understand what’s important to them, and tailor the job to meet both their needs and the company’s objectives. To achieve this your company should conduct regular employee reviews that specifically probe what’s important to them in their job. It’s not very effective, for example, offering more money to employees whose main driver is a balanced work-family lifestyle. Although money is the most common primary reason given as to why people leave jobs, in reality most people don't start looking for a new job because they want more money. There is usually some other source of dissatisfaction that gets a soon-to-be ex-employee started on a job search, hence it’s critical to invest the time in finding out what your talented employees’ value before it’s too late.

And if it is in fact too late, and your ‘star employee’ has made up his or her mind to leave, ensure your company takes the time to learn from them by conducting independently run exit interviews. Why are they leaving? How could their Manager improve? How can the company improve? All valuable questions that shouldn’t go unasked. The results of these exit interviews should then be summarised and communicated back to Management concerned in a non-confrontational way, with appropriate steps taken to address any areas of weakness highlighted in the exit interview process.

10 Tips To Help Retain Valued Employees:

  1. No matter how busy you are, consider just how much busier you will become if you lose one of your team. Take five minutes every day to think about your people and identify one thing they have done that was good – pick up the phone or walk to their desk – and thank them for it.
  2. Determine whether another position, temporary or permanent, needs to be created to relieve the pressure from the employee who is clearly overworked. Recognise that with any employee that is overworked something has to give – usually either they leave or their work suffers.
  3. Work with the employee to ascertain whether they require additional training to increase efficiencies or improve skills in a particular area.
  4. Gather feedback from staff on the effectiveness of management communications and organise training for Management in the areas identified as weaknesses.
  5. Instigate regular performance reviews to ensure that each manager understands what their employee needs to keep them focused and content.
  6. Consider options like cross-training employees, and transfers to other areas of the company to ensure that employees remain focused, challenged and grow their knowledge of the work practices of other areas within your organisation.
  7. Work with the employee to identify a career path within your organisation that takes the employee where they want to go and help them make this happen.
  8. Empower staff to make decisions – reinforce that you have faith in their ability to ‘do the right thing’.
  9. Consider all of the non-financial ways to recognise and reward people and make it your personal challenge to try each one with your employees. Personnel recognition in front of peers, for example, often brings far greater satisfaction to employees than any monetary reward can bring.
  10. Consider ways to add more fun and enjoyment into your work environment. Reward efforts with fun outings such as team sailing days, staff picnics, or consider hiring a masseuse to help relax staff as they go about their work.

In summary, people will typically only change jobs, or be open to approach by a recruiter to change jobs, if their present employer has given them a valid reason to leave. So, if you want your company to avoid becoming a major contributor to that part of the New Zealand workforce who want to change jobs over the next 12 months, you need to invest time in understanding what’s important to your staff to ensure they are kept both challenged and fulfilled, and to identify and learn from their reasons for leaving if they do decide to depart.

Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of absoluteIT. This article was licenced by absoluteIT for the absoluteIT client newsletter. Article Written by Alison Aprhys and Paul Quinn, Quinntessential Marketing Consulting Pty Ltd.