Employees quit for a variety of reasons. Some people feel underappreciated, while others feel overworked. While some employees might be overwhelmed with personal issues, many reasons that workers quit can be chalked up to one thing: leadership.
Let’s take a look at reasons employees quit, and how managers can avoid common mistakes that lead to higher turnover.
Why Employees Quit
Overworked
There’s been an unsettling trend in recent years of employees having more responsibility heaped onto their plate without a commiserate pay raise. It’s all too common for exit interviews to indicate that employees quit because they inherited responsibilities from coworkers who quit before them without getting a raise to match.
If you have turnover, don’t simply dump a ton of extra work on the remaining employees. If you have no plans to fill the position, give pay increases to the people who take on the prior employee’s work. If you do plan to fill the position, divvy up their workload among the entire staff and don’t make it one or two peoples’ jobs to pick up the slack.
Underpaid
This might sound silly, but a well-paid worker is a happy worker. If employees know that regular performance reviews can lead to regular pay raises, they tend to work harder and be happier. It should come as no surprise that someone with enough money to buy lots of groceries and new shoes is in a way better mood when they step into the office.
If the process for getting pay raises and promotions is opaque and inscrutable from the employee level, people can become disillusioned with a job. Some may begin to feel as though they’re working hard with no goal in sight, so the quality of their work deteriorates. When pay raises don’t come from within the company, workers often get poached by other companies who offer a higher starting salary for the same job positions.
Unappreciated
Even employees with a healthy work-life balance, a decent paycheck, and a good work environment can become unhappy if they feel unappreciated. It doesn’t cost a thing to offer feedback on your employees’ work: if someone is doing a great job, tell them! People appreciate hearing from their superiors about how they’re doing. It gives them something to go on when considering what they can improve or what they’re doing right.
Often, your most stalwart employees might not even realize how important they are to you. It’s not a sign of weakness to let them know that you appreciate them, how hard they work and what they bring to the table. This makes them feel important and can be the difference in them sticking around or heading out for a new job.
