Why did this talented employee leave despite a top salary ?
Early this year, Arun, an old friend who is a senior software
designer,got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India
operations developing a specialized software.
He was thrilled by the offer. He had heard a lot about the CEO of
this company, a charismatic man often quoted in the business press for his
visionary attitude. The salary was great.
The company had all the right systems in place - employee - friendly
human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office, the very best
technology,even a canteen that served superb food.
Twice Arun was sent abroad for training."My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon
after he joined. "It's a real high working with such cutting edge technology."
Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Arun walked out of
the job. He has no other offer in hand but he said he couldn't take it
anymore. Nor, apparently, could several other people in his department who have
also quit recently.
The CEO is distressed about the high employee turnover. He's
distressed about the money he's spent in training them. He's distressed because he
can't figure out what happened. Why did this talented employee leave
despite a top salary?
A run quit for the same reason that drives many good people away. The
answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup
Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000
managers and was published in a book called First Break All The
Rules.
It came up with this surprising finding: If you're losing good
people,look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason,
he is the reason people stay and thrive in an
organization. And he's the reason why they quit, taking their
knowledge,experience and contacts with them. Often, straight to the competition.
"People leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus
Buckingham and Curt Coffman."So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good
people - in the form of better pay, better perks and better training - when, in the end,
turnover is mostly a manager issue."
If you have a turnover problem, look first to your managers. Are they
driving people away?
Beyond a point, an employee's primary need has less to do with money,
and more to do with how he's treated and how valued he feels. Much of this
depends directly on the immediate manager.
And yet, bad bosses seem to happen to good people everywhere. A
Fortune magazine survey some years ago found that nearly 75 per cent of
employees have suffered at the hands of difficult superiors. You can leave one
job to find - you guessed it, another wolf in a pin-stripe suit in the next
one.
Of all the workplace stressors, a bad boss is possibly the worst,
directly impacting the emotional health and productivity of employees.
Here are some all-too common tales from the battlefield:
Dev, an engineer, still shudders as he recalls the almost daily
firings his boss subjected him to, usually in front of his subordinates. His
boss emasculated him with personal, insulting remarks. In the face of such
rage, Dev completely lost the courage to speak up. But when he reached home
depressed, he poured himself a few drinks, and magically, became as
abusive as the boss himself. Only, it would come out on his wife and children.
Not only was his work life in the doldrums, his marriage began cracking up
too.
Another employee Rajat recalls the Chinese torture his boss put him
through after a minor disagreement. He cut him off completely. He bypassed him in any
decision that needed to be taken. "He stopped sending me any papers or files," says Rajat. "It
was humiliating sitting at an empty table. I knew nothing and no one told
me anything." Unable to bear this corporate Siberia, he finally quit.
HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find public
humiliation the most intolerable.The first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has been
planted.The second time, that thought gets strengthened.
The third time, he starts looking for another job.
When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive
aggression.
By digging their heels in and slowing down.
By doing only what they are told to do and no more.
By omitting to give the boss crucial information.
Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into
trouble. You don't have your heart and soul in the job."
Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by
being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, too nit-picky. But they forget
that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on
too long, an employee will quit - often over a seemingly trivial issue.
It isn't the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It's the 99 that
went before. And while it's true that people leave jobs for all kinds of
reasons - for better opportunities or for circumstantial reasons - many
who leave would have stayed - had it not been for one man constantly
telling them, as Arun's boss did: "You are dispensable. I can find dozens like
you."
While it seems like there are plenty of other fish especially in
today's waters, consider for a moment the cost of losing a talented employee.
There's the cost of finding a replacement.
The cost of training the replacement.
The cost of not having someone to do the job in the meantime.
The loss of clients and contacts the person had with the industry.
The loss of morale in co-workers.
The loss of trade secrets this person may now share with others.
Plus, of course, the loss of the company's reputation. Every person
who leaves a corporation then becomes its ambassador, for better or for
worse. We all know of large IT companies that people would love to join and large television companies few want to
go near. In both cases, former employees have left to tell their tales.
"Any company trying to compete must figure out a way to engage the
mind of every employee," Jack Welch of GE once said.
Much of a company's value lies "between the ears of its employees".
If it's bleeding talent, it's bleeding value. Unfortunately, many
senior executives busy traveling the world, signing new deals and developing a
vision for the company, have little idea of what may be going on at home.
That deep within an organization that otherwise does all the right
things, one man could be driving its best people away.
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