Solving Three Reasons Talent Leaves Your Company
As the owner of a small business, I know how much it hurts when great team members leave. There have been recent days when it feels like my organization is bleeding talent.
If you want to understand why people are leaving, or to create an environment where team members want to stay, Susan Fowler’s Optimal Motivation framework, outlined in her book Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work and What Does provides key insights into three reasons people may be leaving your company.
Fowler says every person needs to experience Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence through their work. When these are lacking from people’s work experience, they will leave, or worse, quit and stay in your organization.
A friend recently left a job. Here’s why:
People may leave your organization if they lack choices.
Autonomy, an important need, is met by people feeling they have independence and control of their work. My friend mentioned that her workplace felt like a jail to her.
When people feel their workplaces are unjust, they may leave.
My friend’s company eliminated her immediate supervisor, the director of marketing. With his departure, she took on many new responsibilities, with no adjustment in her compensation. This injustice ignited uneasiness within her and prompted her job search. When people sense injustice, they are experiencing a lack of relatedness.
People may leave your organization if they feel so overwhelmed by responsibilities that they don’t have time to do their jobs well.
People have a need to experience competence in their work; we all want to feel like we’re doing a good job. The sense of overwhelm my friend experienced when she took on many additional responsibilities degraded her sense of competence.
If your organization is bleeding, consider ways to increase people’s sense of autonomy, relatedness, and competence in their work.
Why does talent leave organizations?
What might leaders do to retain talent?
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This post, inspired by Susan Fowler’s book, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work and What Does, is by Becky Robinson, founder of Weaving Influence and Hometown Reads. Find out more about Susan Fowler’s book at motivationbook.susanfowler.com.
Great advice for any manager trying to further develop their workforce. If you take the time and financial resources to find and recruit the right talent for positions within your company, you also owe it to the employee and the organization to develop that person to make them want to stay, even when opportunities at other organizations may be attractive.
I too work in education and attracting and retaining quality educators is becoming more and more challenging for a number of reasons. However, I think this is great advice for us as leaders to look for innovative ways to give our people voice in decision making, and the sense they are experts we value. As leaders, our role is to establish processes to get input and give upcoming leaders decision making opportunities to improve our organizations.
I work for the government, and have also heard the mantra “do more with less”. One of our executive management started a discussion by saying you can’t do more with less, and you can’t even do the same amount with less. What you can do is figure out what less is worth doing, and focus on that. An elegant reframing of the discussion. If you lose people, instead of trying to have the remaining people cover their work and the work of those who left, take the time to discuss what work absolutely needs to be done and who should be doing it.
Nicely said, Jennifer. I’ve heard the “do less with less” before, but the “which less” is a great new twist.
I struggle most with people feeling overwhelmed. I want my employees to work hard and push themselves, but I don’t want them to feel stretched too thin. I work in education so there’s a culture of doing “more with less”. It’s hard to combat that.
There is an old saying in HR Management circles that goes like this: “Employees don’t quit jobs. They quit managers…”
While this is obviously an over simplification of a complex issue, it’s never the less an often unacknowledged contributor to higher than desired staff turnover and can result in significant organisational costs.
By providing managers with leadership training to help them work more effectively with and through employees, for example, by giving feedback, engaging with and motivating employees, recognizing and rewarding employees, etc; employee morale and engagement improve, as does team productivity and the quality of their work.
Health Care industry is reaching a critical state in regards to staffing shortages. There are many things that motivate people to leave/stay. Our team in the midst of researching the root cause of why people leave our team. With recent reimbursement challenges and pure shortages, people are doing more with less. Love your posts and reads. All your guests provide such great insight.
We are often confronted with trying to hire talent and my not be polishing the jewels around us leaving staff disenchanted and more vulnerable to look for opportunities to leave us .
Sometimes it’s little things that motivate people to leave (or to stay). Recognition (or lack thereof), giving people small increases in responsibility (project lead for example). Even simple how they’re introduced to strangers: “please meet my senior team lead”. Little things matter-how long it takes to get reimbursement claims processed. How fair reimbursement policies are. On the other hand, some people enjoy moving around and sometimes your best people just get better opportunities. Equally as bad though are people “stuck” in an organization because there’s no competition to jump to or because the current company offers the best package in town.
Interesting thoughts, as we sometimes thinking
Loading on additional responsibilities is a motivator and likely it is not….
Autonomy is huge and often very overlooked.
In the consistent age of doing more with less, streamlining processes and in general, trimming the fat, organizational leaders sometimes focus entirely on profitability while losing site of employee satisfaction. Employee Autonomy, Relatedness and Competence through work are spot on. Creating this environment for talented employees without losing focus of the reason why a business exists in the first place is the day-to-day challenge.
This is a great topic and one that hits home! In recent years, we’ve seen a surge in catering to newer hires with autonomy, compensation, empowerment; however our more tenure employees (10-25 years) are a forgotten past and are not provided with the same as mentioned above. These are folks with the domain knowledge, longstanding client relationships and industry knowledge.
Good information! Retaining good employees is sometimes a challenge!
I am watching this occur in my son’s company. A voluntary retirement package was offered and almost 20% of the department accepted the package. He was “promoted” to greater responsibility with more limited autonomy and lack of clarity in these new roles. As an exempt employee, the HR director said: “We can work you as long as we want.” So the third factor kicks in – an overwhelming sense of I can’t do this job and I’m overwhelmed with responsibility.
Conclusion: A productive employee is becoming emotionally drained and considering his options outside of the team he loves but is crushed by added responsibility and work hours.
Love your post. Reminds me of transformative impacts these 3 things have had on my leadership team. 10 years ago I moved from an independent decision making model to to using a collaborative model where supervisors meet with me to address key decisions and directions. While I still have the final word– their new ability to influence increased their morale and output–and as talent has moved on to take the CEO role they’ve brought this model to their workplace.
‘We all want to feel like we’re doing a good job’ I agree completely. If they dont feel like they are succeeding, they will look to somewhere they will succeed.
Great post. Hits home for sure. I am finding that folks want more perks and having more fun. Any ideas on ways to incorporate fun that will get HR approval and are not expensive? Nerf gun wars and beer carts have been mentioned. I don’t think I can get the beer cart approved!!!!!
Timely topic for us, in local government, as much as or more than for private industry. General guidelines are a great starting point, but we’re finding (duh) that everyone is different. There is no substitute for managers getting to know the people who report to them, finding out what makes them tick and what’s important to them. But that takes time, and we are not good about giving them the time and space to create those relationships, because of everything else we expect managers to accomplish.
Spot on. For some companies, this mindset of how employees are treated becomes a practice they can’t seem to break
Dan, this is good information, so thanks for sharing what others are saying. I really appreciate being able to come to work in the morning and open your blog first thing. Always encourages me and gives me a great start to the day!
I think one reason – especially for visionaries – can be lack of vision and leadership. Employees might be treated well, benefits are good, culture is collegial, but if nobody knows why they are there and where they are headed, it can be a problem. Some people are content with having their work managed, others need vision and leadership to keep moving forward.
Among the good reasons for people leaving an organization listed in this article I would add the following: when there is a lack of meaning in their work and the treadmill never stops they leave, when they don’t feel the values they hold are being honored by their employer they leave, when each day ends without a feeling of accomplishment they leave. Non purpose driven work is just a job. Jobs can be found in many places often for more. Money
People can fairly quickly establish that as employees they are the least important set of stakeholders in a company. When the company is prepared to trade people’s health, never mind their relatedness, competence and autonomy for profit, the employees’ attachment starts to reduce fairly quickly.
Lack of autonomy, relatedness, and sense of competence certainly contribute to draining talent from a company. I think other significant factors include a lack of alignment with company purpose or principles (is that also relatedness?), little to no sense of purpose, no growth path or opportunities, loss of confidence and trust in company leadership or direction, stingy benefits, and inadequate compensation. Sometimes people leave for good reasons like better fit with family demands, a great fit with passion and skills, or a chance to relocate to a desired location. Kudos for addressing a complex topic in a parsimonious manner!
Leadership can influence all aspects. When people feel valued, know they can use their skills effectively, grow into new positions of responsibility, and be compensated fairly, why would they want to leave? People who retire often miss the sense of purpose in their life. When work gives meaning and purpose, people see work as more than a paycheck.
I think an offshoot of autonomy is credit…when people work hard, and accomplish much, they expect the proverbial pat on the back. When that is missing, when their efforts are largely unnoticed, they leave. It is also one of the few things that an employee will bring up; they just know something is missing, and they are not fulfilled.
Great post!!
This is all very interesting. People need to be able to ser opportunities to be able to see a future within any organization.
Thank you for sharing this information.
I believe that it all starts with a clear vision or purpose being communicated and the ongoing dialogue required to ensure there is a sense of importance and belonging imparted to each employee and staff member. Autonomy is key in many positions, but relatedness is key across the board.
Lack of autonomy and growing lack of competence can feed each other as organizations do more and more with fewer and fewer resources. This is a potential recipe for disaster for a small business. Major turnover can really hurt any organization, but it is especially painful for smaller companies.
Thanks Becky. I think you covered it all. I see all of those elements are the responsibility of the leader to communicate, listen and respond.
Great advice, great team members are the most valuable asset to any organization.
This phenomenon is just as or more prevalent in government organizations
to over simplify this topic; any manager and any company has only 2 words to retain employees and keep morale soaring. Those 2 words are APRECIATION & COMPENSATON. These include making a team member feel proud, connected and recognized for their efforts and competencies.
The compensation part is to make them feel they are being treated and paid fairly. Any imbalance in these 2 concepts opens the doors to greener pastures and a more satisfying career choice.
Joe
I’ve seen people get very frustrated when they constantly have to find work-arounds to get things done. They aren’t given the right tools, or when they are, they are not given any training on how to really use them.
I’d also add in the “3 signs of a miserable job”
1. Anonymity
2. Immeasurement
3. Irrelevance
The other thing is maybe you aren’t doing any of these at dangerous levels, but if you have just a little of everything included in all of the comments, then are you subjecting your people to “death by a thousand cuts”.
In many startups especially employeea are faced with ever expanding roles and reaponsibilities, yet without the possibility of increased benefits. A strong vision and purpose “why” can help retain talent if they buy in to the cause or idea.
Got me thinking about other areas of frustration that encourage people to move on… Thank you.
In the education field, we do not have many opportunities for advancement, so the first reason resonates with me. In our intense accountability atmosphere, we are experiencing an increase in teachers leaving for reason #3. Teaching for some is not what they thought it would be or want it to be. As for reason #2, leadership, leadership, leadership.
Great Post!
Just a couple thoughts I had while reading. First, many bosses/companies think they give some control to their employees, but then they may never stand behind that when push comes to shove. So for those supervisors, Stand behind and back up your employee! Second after reading the second two again I feel having one on one or small group meeting are important to specifically bring to light PURPOSE and ask those tough questions about “Do you feel like there are injustices in the workplace”, “Do you feel fulfilled in your position and feel like you have control”?
As a middle manager I completely agree that losing talent after such a long investment into training and development does tremendous damage to the culture and the workloads. But even having a team member step down from a lead position can have the same affect. Thanks for the insight.
We’ve switched our software development approach to small autonomous teams and realized notable improvements in productivity, quality, and employee engagement (these small teams feel like families). The common feedback from these teams is they never want to go back to a traditional command and control framework. The command and control is still there, it is simply higher, where project selection occurs, and kept out of the way where the actual work occurs. Providing coaches developed competency and keeping team / project scope reasonably sized feels “right” (or just), so the teams feel responsible, but not overwhelmed. Today’s post very much aligns with what we’ve seen recently and it works.
In a “lean” culture it’s important to notice when people are expected to do too much. This is difficult as “too much” varies so much between people, their skillsets, and their ability to manage multiple operations. Recognizing and adjusting before becoming overwhelmed is key.
Managing cross-functional teams in a Tech-Media-Telephony company there are often challenges to keeping up with current work while preparing ourselves and the company for the newest technology and methods of operation. I am always looking for ways to better lead my teams even without direct control over their jobs.
People often leave (physically or they “quit and stay”) when the company/environment/leaders fail to investment in them. Investing in someone takes on many forms, 3 primary examples
1) Supporting them in everyday interactions and decisions
2) Investing in them in a tangible way to help them be better personally and professionally
3) Most of all, personally investing by genuinely caring about them as a person, not just an employee and what they do for you/the company
I believe it really helps to be “needed and known”. People want to know that they are needed and that they are making a difference where they are. Making it a priority to express specific gratitude for their work is vitally important for me.
Being known is also huge. No one wants to be just another team member. Knowing their name, their passions, their family, etc. all these things make people feel they are a part of family rather than simply a place to work.
This is a great post I wish the executives of where I work had this mindset. While they have made baby steps to fix these exact points they are still a far cry from the surrounding competition.
From your lips to God’s ear, sister! We are struggling with retention in my organization and your points are spot on. I may buy extra copies of your book for other leaders here and hope we get the message!
This is definitely an interesting view of how to create the right kind of environment for employees to want to stay and be engaged. While the solutions are more complex than they appear on the surface, I feel like autonomy and competence are more easily solved compared to relatedness. Solving a relatedness issue in the workplace or creating a culture where employees feel like that need is satisfied is something I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around.
When employee goals do not match with company mission then they leave and that is not a bad thing. Often, hiring/interviewing process does not really uncover the mismatch and painful time and experience does which leads to employee leaving (in the best case scenario).
Yes -Mr. Susan you are right – I left my previous job ‘overwhelmed by responsibilities’ Current job (assignment) joined only for period of two year in 2010 – but till continuing (Inspite ofbetter offers) – because of Autonomy and availability of helping hand from my boss.
I’m an office manager and I get complaints all the time about the staff being overwhelmed. Unfortunately, my employers just think they are too “young” or they feel “entitled” and don’t understand how the business world works. Truth is … they are being pulled in too many directions and cannot meet their deadlines or they make mistakes in their work do to constant interruptions. Feeling frustrated.
Thanks for the input-I have too much work and a limited opportunities, but overall happy with my work because it’s satisfying. Annoyed at times over staffing levels, but I also know in my profession the hiring phase takes 18 months. I also believe that people have to feel supported by their leadership as well- one has to look no further than a cities relationships or lack thereof with their public safety; if there’s conflict there’s people on their way out. Good old boy systems are also toxic- as everyone is always watching their leaders and once they see unethical behaviors, they become sour. Leadership always requires us to be positive, learn, and collaborate to steer the ship away from the rocks that can and will sink us. Thanks again for the advice!
Great post – and timely for me, as I’m working in an environment where a lot of people are leaving or openly talking about leaving. This gives me some ideas on what to articulate to management about things that need to change!
The best employees care about their work and have a need to feel valued. In government that rarely translates to salary but can be made very apparent by actually telling them, being conscious of a healthy team environment and giving them as much independence as you can. They also need to hear not only that they are doing a great job but they should be able to “see” the results of their work. Direct or indirect, their efforts make something happen that they should get a chance to feel a part of.
I recently heard that 31 good people from my previous place of employment were looking for a job elsewhere. In our business (and many others) that’s known as a red flag. However, management failed to take note and continued doing business as normal – without assigning someone the task of asking “Why?” and determining the root causes for departures. That failure alone stands as one of the reasons people were leaving because employees were nit obviously a priority. Good post. Thanks!
Spot on! It raises another question to examine: How does management know whether an employee/group of employees feel they are being treated unjustly (until it is too late)?
If managers are having high turnovers and they don’t know why, I suggest that they look within. Also I cannot work without autonomy, it’s a must have in any environment.
I can fully agree with the competence remark. A small subset of the company I work for is involved in a large multi-year project with insanely tight timelines and no to little downtime. The team members become overwhelmed and don’t feel like they can do enough to please the project manager. We’ve had several partners leave, which only hurts the company due to the experience and knowledge that walks out the door. I’ve even considered it myself, but those thoughts subsided as my workload has become more balanced.
I have started to distance myself from “motivation” and move towards “inspiration”. Motivation involves a carrot and stick mentality. I would rather inspire team members to better themselves and the organization.
Over the next several years, I believe we will be entering a new workforce paradigm that is going to completely change the relationship between employer and employee. The days of the ole Company Man/Woman are disappearing with the retirements of the Baby Boomers. Let’s face it, the most expensive part of a company is its employees on a variety of different levels (e.g., salaries, health benefits, pensions, vacations, sick/maternity leaves, etc.). I predict within the next 10 years, more than 50% of workers will be freelancers or consultants. Loyalty to any one firm is going to become a thing of the past. Therefore, companies will not have to worry about retaining talent, they will have to worry about maintaining competitive advantage and intelligence with a highly fluid workforce. Everything stated so far applies to those who want to work. As far as the current crop of children in university who become upset over some ridiculous microaggression and need their “safe spaces” to insulate themselves from reality, one can only imagine the type of employee these children will become. So glad I’m retired and living in the desert. (BTW, if you select me to receive one of the books, please pass along to someone else.)
I completely agree that a highly motivating factor to leave a company is not getting properly compensated when you take on more work than what you initially signed on for. Sometimes we are happy for the opportunity to expand our skills and take on more work but don’t forget that we all have bills to pay at the end of the day. My generation likes loyalty to be shown through compensation and work “perks”. It may be wrong and insensitive but things are changing and not sure if its better or not.
Meant to put this here, As ole Bob Dylan once sang – “The Times They Are A-Changin.”
Talent also leaves because they don’t feel that they have a future or are being appropriately developed. Without upward mobility, talent leaves quickly. In order to retain top talent, we need to not fear losing them to the next position within our organization.
Developing a positive culture where goals are definitively set, workers responsibilities are clear, and they are made aware or their importance in meeting those goals. Reducing competition between employees and promoting a team effort reduces job stress. We all want to feel that our input is appreciated and important. Financial compensation is secondary to a positive culture in an organization.
Very interesting and helpful. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing. This really drives home how specific actions can impact the feelings (perceptions) of the people in an organization. Talking about adding responsibilities, sometimes these actions are to address a practical issue (the person who did it left), but just as often it is a cost-savings activity. The irony is that the impact to the bottom line becomes significantly worse when you factor the expense of hiring/training someone to do that work again, along with the cost to the business of that work not being completed for that period of time.
Seeing that their needs of having autonomy, competerce, and relatedness are met is the key to releasing their motivations. But how to do that? The only way is to also meet their needs to be heard and be respected. Do that by listening to their complaints, suggestions, and questions more often than necessary to meet their need to be heard and respond to those to their satisfaction or better every time. This the the road to a highly motivated and fully engaged workforce of Superstars, at least 400 more productive than if not so.
I read a great article on why millenials leave. The biggest reason was lack of continuing education opportunity. When they feel they are no longer learning anything, they move on. This may mean courses or workshops but also opportunities to take on additional responsibilities and learn new skills. I think this is true of many of the rest of us, but better documented in a younger working generation.
Dan,
Would you write a 3 part series and provide more ideas on how to improve each of those three experiences, especially when there are circumstances out of the leader’s control that could degrade those experiences?
I’ve left jobs when I didn’t feel appreciated. Doing little things to make your employees feel cared for and to make their jobs easier will go a long way in retaining employees.
This is a helpful article. I think that most people want to have a sense of “agency” in their work; with the ability to shape what they do and how they do it; to be given clarity about what they are being asked to do and then to have the agency to decide how they will do it.
This post and the comments remind me of one of the memorable statements Joe Maddon said when he was introduced as the new manager of the Chicago Cubs: “Never let the pressure exceed the pleasure.” I think it’s that simple for many professional situations. The complicated part, though, is that “pressure” and “pleasure” could be so very different for different employees. For some, pressure could be increased responsibilities, for other it’s handling an erratic boss or coworker. Pleasure could be money, credit, or latitude to work as one sees fit.
Got all the way to Rob Springall’s post to discover that he had said what I was thinking. The danger of prescribing how to motivate employees is that you can’t come up with one solution. For instance, I find “fun” activities to be a demotivator while we can see from this thread how important that is to a lot of other people. The challenge of being a manager in this century is that you really do have to spend a ton of time figuring out what works for each person. Yet one of our other trends is that most actual managers (vs. executives) are now player-coaches, heavily engaged in “billable” or production work (whatever your organization produces) which limits the time available for all this people-pleasing which is very time-consuming. And as a motivator it is almost better not being done at all than done poorly.
This is a nice synopsis. In the company I am working, I’ve seen people leave for ambiguous bonus structures which are explained differently at the end of the quarter, leaving team members with less bonus or no bonus.
In addition, people leave because the chaos of organizational change becomes overwhelming.
Thanks for this read. It is a keeper.
Dear Dan,
An interesting post and the topic of any good research & analysis. Exit interviews can certainly provide a good insight into the reasons why people leave the organization. Indifferent bosses, unfairness & injustice in promotions, annual increments and recognition/rewards.
The top management plays an important role in shaping the organization culture. Simultaneously, HR has a big role in ensuring the execution of right policies and processes to keep the employee staff satisfied & productive.
I so need to read her book! We have lost talent and it would be great to share with human resources and others at the office so we can find the autonomy, relatedness and competence in their work!
As someone who has studied the influence of organizational culture, I see this as a culture issue. As I scanned many of the comments, I was struck by the industries that most struggle with these are also the industries that are largely “closed” to others outside their fields.I mention this because they are re-cycling the same people through their organizations and yet they expect different results.I find this interesting.
Over the past 10 years we have lowered our employee base from 55 down to 45…distributing the work of 10 people amongst the remaining 45. This has been due to retiring employees not being replaced. We have seen the exit of long term employees because of this very fact. As a new manager, I so need to read her book!!! In the past there has been a lack of succession planning and I would like to know what else I need to change in order for this cycle to not continue and this be a better place to work when I leave. Thank you for this article!!!
So much of those three factors too is avoiding stagnation. If your company/dept is deficient in autonomy, relatedness, or competence, let employees see that you genuinely care and are moving the needle on those qualities. That goes a long way – and can even inspire a flagging talent to stay on and help the cause.
Timely article! My organization is ticking all the wrong boxes that you described at this time. We need to change our enviroment prior to the mass exodus.
Thanks for sharing this. The UK police have been cut by over 20,000 so these issues are as topical in policing as I am sure they are elsewhere. I recognise ‘they will leave’ (some are leaving) that’s tangible….but the ‘quit and stay in your organization’ is something that is also relevant because officers (under pensions changes) are now working much longer, contributing more and receiving less at the end of their service. Some are in the pension trap…so any mental decision to disengage is less tangible. Here’s an interesting Oxford review article I found recently with some new research about trust and employee ‘psychological contracts’ v intention to leave during organisational changes: http://www.oxford-review.com/the-2-things-that-predict-peoples-intention-to-leave-during-organisational-change/ Thanks again for sharing.
Steve
Good to know that autonomy, competence, and relatedness are the terms researchers Edward Deci and Richard Ryan used as what motivates us all. Their “Self-Determination Theory” and their over 30 years of research proved that conclusion. Their work is very valuable. I hope that Susan Fowler gave them due recognition.
Sometimes, having people leave isn’t a bad thing even if they have talent.
In the last six months, I’ve had two people leave. In both cases they took the position to get into the federal system or specifically our agency. Both admitted some months after hiring that they were hoping once they had the position to redesign it into something they wanted to do (with little or no interest in what they were hired to do.) While not yet performing their duties in a satisfactory manner, both were looking for different assignments because they didn’t like the work (it was discussed in depth during the interviews) or because other positions within the agency “look[ed] like more fun” (they didn’t have the required qualifications but I had discussed how they could eventually get them. Both had real potential to get to where they wanted to be and did have talent but they weren’t willing to look at the long picture and I can’t afford to have someone at a desk who was spending the day trying to find their “bliss”.
Since they’ve gone, I’ve noticed our lean, mean fighting machine is slowly becoming a lean, mean, exhausted machine. Are we happier? Yep. Do we laugh more? Absolutely. Am I trying to find ways to reduce the exhaustion? On a daily basis. Do I think we’re better off and more productive? Every day!
I like that there seems to be recurring leadership articles/books around the importance of autonomy, relatedness and competence with regard t workforce engagement. It helps send the message to managers that its not just another flavor of the month. Then people can use the variety of authors/approaches to these key themes to find something that resonates for them.
Very thought provoking post.
There’s an interesting dichotomy going on in companies. Employees are now more demanding, sometimes almost entitled. Susan has talked about this many times, that it’s hard for managers to fully understand what motivates employees because the employees themselves don’t often know. They just know that they’re dissatisfied. Unlocking the potential of your company is unlocking that mystery.
Autonomy, relatedness and competence?
Reminscent of the “satisfiers” in Herzbergs’s two-factor theory: growth, recognition, challenge, responsibility, achievement, etc.
However, we never achieve or maintain satisfaction if our “hygiene” factors (salary, working conditions, rules, policies, procedures, supervision) are not met.
Nice reminders and explanation of a concept that never gets old.
Great blog post! Thanks for sharing
I cannot emphasize enough how important the need for experience competence is. I have worked in an environment where it felt every day was a fire drill, and I never had a chance to feel like I was getting good at my core responsibilities, because I was constantly putting out fires, which in and of itself can be very demotivating, even if the fires are not of your own doing. I am in an environment now where I am told to “keep doing what I’m doing”, but that feedback still leaves my “experience competence” bucket empty, as it is not giving me the “here’s what you’re doing right and here’s what you could change” feedback I need to grow in my role. I’ve learned to be much more direct, almost to the point of being pushy, in soliciting feedback.
I have seen people leave for many reasons examples being their job is not fulfilling for them, need greater challenges, others require monetary enhancements greater than a company offers. Life is all we make it, nothing worse then doing a job you hate, make your choices that work for you. Many people go to college and end up not doing what they trained for, not all bad, just know what you want! Learn to be patient with people and yourself, learn self control, make yourself a better person for others and better things happen.
Love it !
Starting with a big if, IF you can, start with people who are already motivated, communicate the direction you want to go, set some basic guidelines, then assist them. lf they’re capable, you have the formula for success. If they aren’t as capable as they need to be, find more appropriate roles and/or help them to become more capable.
If you already have employees who aren’t motivated, even if they’re capable, find out why. It might be because of the hierarchy above them, or the constraints forced upon them.
If they’re not motivated and they’re not capable, well, you’ve already answered your own question.
Excellent guest blog, lots to think about here. Autonomy, justice, competence…YES! Thanks for sharing!
Good post and very accurate. I’m also reminded that we tend to make decisions about our employment based on our supervisor, not the company, underscoring the importance of hiring managers for their leadership ability, not their technical proficiency. And as always, great communication and great training are bedrocks to successful leadership.
I’m struggling with the thought people leave when they have limited choices. How does one offer choices in a small business setting? Choices are limited so I want to know what works.
Talent leaves the organization because of who is leading them. This sentiment continues to challenge and motivate me to be a better leader.
People leave if they don’t feel known or like they’re part of a team. Anonymity is a crappy feeling!
Thanks for all your tweets and blog posts, I love them!
No one will stay if they are there just for the money! They stay for what they do and how it makes them feel. Its all about the why not the what. I think I heard that in a ted talk someplace.
Why is exactly why we teach children experientially.
This is very helpful. In my current position, there is way more work than we have people, and since it is a new unit in the organization, there are still unclear delineations in scopes of work and workflows, decision points, chains of command,etc.. Hence, leading to seemingly insurmountable challenges in feeling a sense of competency overall. Just too much ambiguity, let alone all the usual office politics… all that aside, I think such an environment can also create interesting opportunities to assume leadership in new capacities. At least I hope so 🙂
Another vital piece of relatedness is values alignment. Justice is for sure a part of that. The “Employee Appraisal process” (to borrow Susan’s phrase) includes other criteria though that assesses how the employee feels aligned to the company’s espoused and (more importantly) practiced values; as well as if they feel the org helps them achieve a purpose greater than themselves, with others with whom they share a mutual caring. Buy the book while you are waiting to win a copy, you will have one to give to a friend!
Interesting and insightful. In education it is difficult to attract new teachers and you must work hard to keep them. Thank you.
Great post. Very insightful. In education it can be difficult to recruit new teachers and you must work hard to retain good teachers. Thank you.
Very interesting and helpful! Thank You!
The main reason is the manager then comes the other things.
Great read!
Unfortunately, I’ve seen firsthand the results of unhealthy leadership. While teams under unhealthy leadership or in toxic or challenging environments do have the ability to function and “get things done” their turnover rate is high. It can be devestating to an organization, not just because they lose good people, but because those that stay are usually part of the problem. Leadership is challenging, but tools like these blogs help to challenge “old patterns” thinking and stir up thought for change! Thank you!
Knowing now that, adding more responsibilities could create hitches, how does one manage that in a family business where a section believes it would take sacrifice to grow the business?
In several fast growing companies I serve, 30% a year or more, people leave because they don’t feel competent even though collectively the business is achieving as individuals they feel they are not.. It seems to do with a lack of regular feedback. Thanks for this article!
I do agree with your reasons but all too often there is a lack of leadership within an organisation. Many so-called leaders are actually managers in disguise and may even feel threatened providing employees with autonomy and relatedness and then expecting (demanding?) competence!