Are you an employer thinks they have everything under control? You better start re-evaluating. There’s an old saying:
Employees don’t quit working for companies, they quit working for their bosses.
Regardless of title, position or tenure, employees who voluntarily leave their jobs generally do so out of some sort of perceived divide with leadership.
- More than 30% believe they’ll be working someplace else inside of 12 months.
- More than 40% don’t respect the person they directly report to.
- More than 50% say they have different values than their employer.
- More than 60% don’t feel their career goals are aligned with the plans their employers have for them.
- More than 70% don’t feel appreciated or valued by their employer.
Here’s the thing – employees who are challenged, engaged, valued, and rewarded (emotionally, intellectually & financially) rarely leave, and more importantly, they perform at very high levels.
You Failed To Unleash Their Passions
Smart companies align employee passions with corporate pursuits. Human nature makes it very hard to walk away from your areas of passion. If a company fails to understand this, you’ll unintentionally be encouraging employees to seek their passions elsewhere.
You Failed To Challenge Their Intellect
Smart people don’t like to live in a world of boredom. If you don’t challenge your employee’s minds and intellect, they’ll leave you for a company that will.
You Failed To Engage Their Creativity
Great talent is wired to improve, develop and add value. They are built to innovate and change. They feel a need to contribute by putting their fingerprints on design. Smart leaders don’t put people in boxes – they free them from boxes and allow them to run free. What’s the point of having a racehorse if you don’t let them run?
You Failed To Develop Their Skills
Leadership isn’t a destination – it’s a continuous journey. No matter how talented or smart a person is, there’s always room for growth and development. If you place limitations on an employee’s ability to grow and develop, they’ll leave you for someone who won’t.
You Failed To Give Them A Voice
Talented people have good ideas, thoughts, insights, and observations. If you don’t listen to them, I can almost guarantee you that someone else will.
You Failed To Care
Sure, most people come to work for a paycheque, but that’s not their only reason. In fact, many studies show it’s not even the most important reason people work. If you fail to care about your employees at a human and emotional level, they’ll eventually leave you no matter how much you pay them.
You Failed to Lead
Businesses don’t fail, projects don’t fail, products don’t fail and teams don’t fail – leaders fail. The best proof of the value of leadership is what happens in its absence. If you fail to lead, your talent will seek better leadership elsewhere.
You Failed To Acknowledge Their Contributions
The best leaders don’t take credit – they give credit. Failing to recognize the contributions of your employees is not only arrogant and dishonest, but it’s as also just as good as asking your staff to leave.
You Failed To Increase Their Responsibilities
You cannot restrict talent – try to do so and you’ll either devolve into mediocrity or force the talent to seek more fertile ground. People will happily accept a bigger workload as long as there’s an increase in responsibility that comes along with the performance and execution of said workload.
You Failed To Keep Your Commitments
Promises made are of no value, but promises kept are priceless. If you break trust with the employees you lead you’ll pay a very steep price. Leaders not accountable to their staff will eventually be held accountable by their staff.
If leaders spent less time trying to retain staff, and more time trying to understand, care, invest and lead them, the retention part would take care of itself.