Employees Leave Their Irritations, not Their Managers
You have heard the saying 100 times “people leave managers, not companies.” However, this common belief is in fact false, according to Beth N. Carvin, CEO and president of Nobscot Corporation. “Employees are leaving irritations,” Carvin said. “Irritations are things that bother the employee enough for them to say I give up and I'm not going to take this anymore.”
Carvin, who has many years of experience reviewing more than three million online exit interview responses, says that irritations vary from organization to organization. She listed the following examples of common irritations:
- Bad managers;
- Mean co-workers;
- Lack of growth opportunities;
- Rotten customers;
- Annoying workplace procedure; and
- Questionable ethics of senior management.
“The key is that each organization has their own set of irritations that cause employees to leave,” said Carvin. “The challenging part is that not only do the irritations vary from company to company but they also vary within a company. One department may lose people because of one reason and another because of a completely different irritation. Women might leave for different reasons than men. New hires might quit after three months for reasons that are very different than those of long service employees. High performers generally leave for different reasons than low performers and so on.”
“The important point is that you can't make assumptions,” Carvin continued. “You don't want to build your retention strategies around guesses or based on what is troubling the company down the street or because of a popular (but over-simplified) saying.”
Retention push and pull
According to Carvin, retention is all about push and pull. “There are both push factors (irritations) and pull factors (reasons outside the company's control),” said Carvin. “Push factors might be any of the things previously noted as common irritations, while pull factors might be things like relocation due to a spouse's job change, wanting to stay home due to change in family situation or health.”
“The interesting thing to note is that generally (but not always) pull factors have an element of push as well,” Carvin continued. “If the job was wonderful and without irritants, maybe the spouse would have found a job closer to home so they didn't have to re-locate. It's easy to be pulled when irritations are building up.”
HR can improve retention by limiting the irritations. In order to improve retention and decrease turnover caused by employees’ irritations, HR must first understand what about the company is irritating employees. “It's all about identifying your unique irritations in the various population groups within your organization,” said Carvin. “Once you identify the irritations you can begin to take steps to minimize and/or eliminate as many as possible. Irritation identification can be done through standard employee feedback methods such as exit interviews, employee surveys and focus groups.”
“Reducing irritations should always come first in an attrition reduction plan,” concluded Carvin. “The perks and fun stuff can be added once the irritations are removed.”
Source: Interview conducted by CCH, a Wolters Kluwer company, of Beth N. Carvin, CEO and President of Nobscot Corporation; www.nobscot.com.
<p>Employers should avoid building retention strategies based on assumptions or guesses. Many employees leave company irritations. HR can help improve retention by limiting the irritations.</p>