Branham L. - The 7 hidden reasons employees leave [c] how to recognize the subtle (2005)(en)

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P R E F A C E

elusive motivations that cause capable employees to start questioning their decision to join your company, start thinking of leaving, eventually disengage, and finally, leave.

The true root causes of voluntary employee turnover are hiding in plain sight. If we really think about it, we already know what they are: lack of recognition (including low pay), unfulfilling jobs, limited career advancement, poor management practices, untrustworthy leadership, and dysfunctional work cultures.

So, in what way are these root causes hidden, and from whom? Surveys tell us they are hidden from the very people who need to be most aware of them—the line managers who are charged with engaging and keeping valued employees in every organization. The vast majority of line managers, in fact, believe that most employees leave because they are ‘‘pulled’’ away by better offers. Of course most do leave for better offers, but it is simplistic and superficial to accept ‘‘pull factors’’ as root causes.

What these managers fail to perceive is that ‘‘push factors,’’ mostly within their own power, are the initial stimuli—the first causes—that open the door to the ‘‘pull’’ of outside opportunities. The important question that remains unasked in so many exit interviews is not ‘‘Why are you leaving?’’ but ‘‘Why are you not staying?’’

Over the years, I have listened to hundreds of departing employees emotionally describe the sources of their dissatisfaction with, and disengagement from, their former employers. And, I have been intrigued by the fact that so many managers see things so differently. Eventually, in an effort to authoritatively document the root causes of voluntarily employee turnover, I contacted the Saratoga Institute in Santa Clara, California, now a division of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and considered by many to be the world leader in third-party exit interviewing and employee commitment surveying. Saratoga was founded in 1977 by Dr. Jac Fitz-enz, a pioneer

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in human resource practices benchmarking and human capital return on investment.

Saratoga Institute maintained a database of 19,700 exit and current employee surveys it had conducted from 1999 through 2003, a five-year period that started during a war for talent and ended during the buyer’s market that followed. Saratoga’s survey data included companies in a wide range of industries—financial, industrial medical, technology, manufacturing, distribution, insurance, health care, telecommunications, transportation, computer services, electronics, consumer products, consumer services, business services, consulting, and ‘‘other services.’’

I was pleased that the Saratoga Institute was interested in the premise of this book and willing to let me analyze the data and verbatim comments from these surveys. The ‘‘seven hidden reasons’’ I identified through this analysis are remarkably similar to the turnover causes I described in my earlier book, Keeping the People Who Keep You in Business. When you read about them, you will probably not be surprised to see any of them among the top seven. The real surprise is that even when companies know what the root causes are, they aren’t doing nearly as much as they could be doing to eradicate them.

Too many companies are still relying on the tangible, easy-to-imple- ment solutions that revolve around pay, benefits, and trendy perks, when we know the most powerful solutions revolve around the more challenging intangibles, such as good management and a healthy corporate culture. This book is ultimately more about solutions than it is about the reasons employees disengage and leave. You will find in these pages 54 practices for engaging workers and bonding them to your organization. You will find that some of these practices fit your current needs and situation better than others.

The good news is that you don’t have to implement all of the 54 engagement practices. All you have to do is implement the right ones—the ones that will best engage and retain the employees you need most to achieve your business objectives. So please feel free to skip from chapter to chapter, picking and choosing among the practices that best fit the needs of your company and your key talent.

I also invite you to visit the Web site of Keeping the People, Inc.— www.keepingthepeople.com—and anonymously complete one or both of the confidential surveys you will find there. Your response to these surveys will serve to support my ongoing research into employee engagement and what managers believe about the real causes of turnover.

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

For his initial interest in the idea for this book and his ongoing cooperation and contributions during the writing process, I offer my sincere thanks to Michael Kelly, director of research at Saratoga Institute in Santa Clara, California. Michael responded to each chapter as it was written with long, thoughtful missives and phone conversations that provided a valuable perspective.

For her supportive encouragement and ongoing technical assistance, I am deeply grateful to my wife, Cheryl.

For their inspiration and support, I thank my sons, Christopher Reed and Jonathan Spencer.

For taking the time to bring his expertise to bear on an important section of the book, special appreciation goes to Don Feltham.

Thanks to all the workers who responded to the thousands of Saratoga surveys with honesty, candor, and the faith that maybe their comments would help to make things better.

Thanks to all the kindred authors, executives, human resource professionals, colleagues, fellow consultants, and clients whose thoughts and actions have inspired and contributed to the continuing quest for human capital management practices that produce business success. Their names, ideas, and wisdom enrich this book.

For his expert and professional editing, I acknowledge the conscientious assistance of Niels Buessem.

And last but not least, for her guiding hand and constructive suggestions, I thank Adrienne Hickey, editorial director at AMACOM.

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The 7 Hidden Reasons

Employees Leave

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It was almost six weeks since Anna had resigned her position with her former employer, but it was obvious that strong feelings were still stirring inside her:

‘‘I was thrown into the job with no training. I asked for some one-on- one time with my manager to go over the project inside out, but he never had the time. I sensed he didn’t really know enough to be able to thoroughly brief me anyway.

‘‘When I got feedback that certain work wasn’t acceptable, he wouldn’t be specific about how to correct it in the future. . . . He actually enjoyed intimidating people and he had a terrible temper—he would ask me a question and if I didn’t know the answer, he would make fun of me in front of my coworkers. As it turns out, he wasn’t following the right work procedures himself.

‘‘Later, when I was working way below my skill set, I was told they weren’t ready to give me a promotion, even though I had mastered everything.

‘‘Finally, when I resigned, they didn’t seem interested in why I was leaving. There was no exit interview. They never listened to me when I was there, and they certainly didn’t care to listen when I left.’’

Anna went on to say that she loved her management position with her new employer: ‘‘I’m still doing what I love to do, but in a much more

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professional environment. There’s open communication and no gameplaying. I know where I stand with them at all times.’’

One more thing—Anna went on to mention that she had hired away a talented colleague from her former company.

In the post-exit interviews I conduct for client companies with employees they regretted losing, these are the kinds of stories I hear. I know there are two sides to every story, and that Anna’s former manager might tell it differently. But I also know that there is truth in Anna’s story, and in all the stories I hear—more truth than they were willing to tell their former employers when they checked out on their last day of employment.

The good news is that some companies do wake up and realize it’s not too late to start listening to former, and current, employees. Some grow alarmed when several highly valued workers leave over the course of a few weeks, and others become concerned about protecting their reputation as a good place to work. Most companies, however, simply want to make sure they have the talent they need to achieve their business objectives.

But the fact remains that many managers and senior executives don’t care about why valued employees are leaving. Their attitude seems to be ‘‘If you don’t like it, don’t let the door hit you in the backside on your way out!’’

You care, or you wouldn’t have picked up this book. So why do you care? Why even take the time and effort to uncover the real reasons employees leave? It would be much easier just to accept what most employees say in exit interviews. You know the usual answers: ‘‘more money’’ or ‘‘better opportunity.’’

Who has time to stop and wonder why they left, anyway? They’re gone. They didn’t want to be here, so why worry about what they think? We can’t expect to retain everybody we hire. Let’s just get on with finding a replacement.

If this sounds familiar, it should, because it describes the prevailing mindset of most managers in American companies today. Most are overworked and many are frustrated with their inability to meet the demands of the workforce, much less have time to do exit interviews. And increasingly, human resource departments are so understaffed that they can do little more than ask departing employees to quickly fill out exit surveys on their last day.

Managers Will Not Hear What Workers Will

Not Speak

As we know, when exiting employees are asked, ‘‘Why are you leaving?’’ most are not inclined to tell the whole truth. Rather than risk burning a

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bridge with the former manager whose references they might need, they’ll just write down ‘‘better opportunity’’ or ‘‘higher pay.’’ Why would they want to go into the unpleasant truth about how they never got any feedback or recognition from the boss, or how they were passed over for promotion?

So, it is no wonder that, according to one survey, 89 percent of managers said they believe that employees leave and stay mostly for the money.1 Yet, my own research, along with Saratoga Institute’s surveys of almost 20,000 workers from eighteen industries,2 and the research of dozens of other studies, reveal that actually 80 to 90 percent of employees leave for reasons related NOT to money, but to the job, the manager, the culture, or the work environment (Figure 1-1). These internal reasons (also known as ‘‘push’’ factors, as opposed to ‘‘pull’’ factors, such as a better-paying outside opportunity) are issues within the power of the organization and the manager to control and change.

It is a simple case of ‘‘when you don’t know what’s causing the problem, you can’t expect to fix it.’’ This dismaying disconnect between what managers believe and the reality—the true root causes of employee disengagement and turnover—is costing businesses billions of dollars a year.

Saratoga Institute estimates the average cost of losing an employee to be one times annual salary.3 This means that a company with 300 employees, an average employee salary of $35,000, and a voluntary turnover rate of 15 percent a year, is losing $1,575,000 per year in turnover costs alone. If, for the sake of illustration, 70 percent of this company’s forty-five yearly

Figure 1-1.

Why people leave: what managers believe vs. the reality. Source: Unpublished Saratoga Institute research, 2003.

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