Top 5 Reasons Why Employees Leave and What We Do About It
Correct me if I'm wrong…
If you don't feel that you're growing, you’re likely going to leave.
If you feel that you are underpaid, you're likely to leave.
If there is no challenge for you at work anymore, you're likely to leave.
If people do not appreciate you, or when you feel undervalued, you're likely to leave.
If the company culture is very toxic, when people lay blame, and NOT take responsibility for their mistakes. you're likely to leave.
These top five reasons are not made up by me.
And it’s actually a report from a world renowned HR firm, Robert Walters.
Knowing these, as a leader of my group of companies.
It’d be foolish for me to not put in place processes and systems to overcome these problems.
Aka nip them in the bud before it becomes a big problem.
#1 How We Assist Our Team Members To Grow Daily
There are three processes that I put in place to ensure that my team members are growing every single day..
1. Within the area where we have a lot of domain expertise, we lay a growth roadmap for our team members.
And we have a check in with them once a week for myself, I have a direct report of a couple of managers and I speak to them.
Next, my managers speak to their direct reports separately with regards to their own growth roadmaps.
2. In the areas where I do not have domain expertise. We hire external coaches, external consultants to be able to train our team.
And I give the team a budget.
And I ask them… Who are the experts out there that you follow?
And you want to learn from?
Tell me how much it costs to learn from them and we spend within budget.
We give it to them so they can go and upskill themselves in the areas where we are not a domain expert.
3. We take co-responsibility for growth
If you ask most people, “are you growing at work?”
And what would their answer be?.
Likely, they’d go, “Uhm… Uhm… maybe… bla bla bla”
Therefore, in my humble opinion… “are you growing at work?”
Is a very passive and poor question.
In my team, we ask active questions like… “Did I do my best to grow today?”
“Did I do my best to get out of my comfort zone today? “
If the answer is no. Then it is also the responsibility of the team members to find opportunities.
And take action to grow every single day.
And we encourage everyone to tell their managers or bosses, “I wish to grow in this area. Can you support me?”
All in all, everyone here takes personal responsibility for their growth.
And we provide the platform and assist them to grow.
#2 How We Ensure Our Team Members Are Always Overpaid
Well, it’s natural if you feel underpaid, you may want to leave.
Now, it is so easy to find out what the market rate of anyone’s position is.
Therefore, the first thing that we do is basically we find out what's the industry benchmark.
And I do my best to give 5, 10 to 15% or more above the industry average.
On a case by case basis - depending on their expertise and impact to the company’s revenue and profits.
I do that so I can retain excellent people on my team.
On top of that, I let everyone know…
“Hey, folks, if you are in the marketing and sales department, if you are responsible to bring in the leads, revenue and profits for the company.
Of course, you can expect yourself to be making slightly more than other functions like operations or finance.”
Because without water, any human being would be thirsty.
And who is responsible for maintaining a prosperous water source?
The guys in the marketing and sales department.
Next, how do we make sure that our team members always get progressive increments in remuneration.
Simple. The more you grow, the more value you add to the company.
I must give you a higher salary.
And in fact, I would love to give all my team members a higher salary every single year.
Because that signifies they are always adding MORE value.
They are getting better and better at the job every single year.
I even tell them, if you have a particular income target and you want to get there faster.
You can share with me…”Hey, Joe, I wish to hit this income target.”
“Can you please tell me what I need to do in order to get there?”
And guess what?
We put together a roadmap and see how you can deliver more value to the company.
And then eventually you might be able to reach the income goal that you desire.
So all of this is very open, very conversational.
I don't want to keep it under wraps.
I would love to always pay my team members the highest salary to my ability.
Provided the value they deliver is always increasing.
#3 How We Keep Team Members Feeling Challenged on a Regular Basis
When people do not feel challenged at work, they will leave.
And guess what, what do we do? Tying in to number one - Growth Mindset.
How do we encourage growth and challenge?
When my team members ask themselves, “did I do my best to challenge myself every single day?”
That’s the first level of co-responsibility, called personal responsibility.
Second, it's also my responsibility to make sure that they are challenged with more challenging tasks and projects.
So they can justify the additional value they bring to the company and subsequently, also additional remuneration.
Once again, when you do not feel that you're being challenged at work.
Are you taking the responsibility to suggest how you can be challenged?
If not, what can I do for you?
Therefore, I like that we take co-responsibility to grow.
And to get challenged at work constantly.
#4 How We Appreciate Our Team Members So They Do Not Feel Undervalued
Naturally, if a person does not feel appreciated, they leave.
Here’s what we do about this. Every single week, we have a team meeting.
And before we start speaking about business, the challenges we face and how to overcome them.
We have a very small segment about five or 10 minutes before we start the actual meeting.
And that is called this “share your wins”.
Everyone will be unashamed to share their wins for the week.
If “there are no big wins” - what are your learning experiences?
Because we believe, either you win or you learn.
We make sure everyone's wins are acknowledged and recognized in public.
I’ve put in place this process and emphasized this before the start of every meeting because of previous mess ups.
I’m only human and I've made countless mistakes in the past before, ok.
I’ve had team members come up to me and say…
“Hey Jo, I think I'm doing a good job. But I don't, I don't feel appreciated.”
When I hear all these things, I take in feedback, and I change.
I begin to praise my team members more in public.
I begin to put in place things like what I just mentioned - to celebrate wins during team meetings.
#5 How We Avoid Toxic Workplace Culture By Taking Responsibility For Mistakes and Have Difficult Conversations With Each Other
If your workplace has a very toxic culture of laying blame, talking behind each other's back, not taking responsibility for your own mistakes.
Of course, it's toxic and causes people to leave.
I believe that one of the biggest problems of a toxic workplace culture is poor communication.
Most people like to text, text, email whatsoever back and forth.
And they think that they will be able to get a point across.
But guess what? When you text someone, only about 7% of communication gets through to the other person.
How about the other 93%.
It’s been lost due to lack of body language and tonality.
Therefore, what do we do right to minimize communication breakdown?
We encourage my team members to use more voice and video messages.
If you were to be able to send a voice/video message. It provides a lot of clarity to the message, tone and intention.
Drastically removes toxicity in workplaces as well.
Next, I believe another one of the biggest problems in toxic workplaces is due to people avoiding difficult conversations.
Because they don’t know how to bring up difficult conversations peacefully and objectively.
Without hurting other people. And they keep it within themselves. Like a boiling kettle that cannot release pressure.
Once the pressure is too much to take, they explode and rage at the other party.
Creating conflict and commotion.
But did you know that difficult conversations could be easy if you employ the correct communication strategy?
Therefore, we teach other team members how to communicate using a OTFD framework.
If you want to have a difficult convo with anyone in the team.
You only have to say, “Hey XYZ, would it be okay if I give you some feedback?”
That’s our cue to say… “Can I have a difficult conversation with you?”
Next, we employ the 4 part OTFD framework to express:
What we observe.
What we think
How we feel
What we desire
You can check out the FREE training on this framework here.
As a result of employing this, we have much more open communication between everyone in the team.
And we work more cordially with each other.
Isn’t that fantastic?
Next, I believe another big factor that contributes to toxic workplace culture is a lack of responsibility.
When people lack the maturity to take responsibility for the mistakes that they make.
And lay blame on their team members.
You start to have toxic workplaces.
Workplace that has tons of finger pointing, politics and not harmony.
What a mess.
But this is largely because people don’t understand that 94% of workplace mistakes are NOT people's problems.
But PROCESS problems.
According to Buckminster Fuller.
And when we focus on improving the process.
We stop laying blame on each other.
And when we all adopt the mature mindset of taking responsibility for our mistakes.
It’s ok to apologise proactively, like what I always do.
If I mess up, guess what? I will say, “guys, I'm sorry, that was my mistake”.
When leaders stop having high ego. Workplace toxicity reduces drastically.
Amen?
All in all, we understand the five top reasons why people leave.
And we take preemptive measures.
On top of that, we go above and beyond so that our workplaces can be the one of the best places for our team members.
I'm very proud to say that many of our team members have been with us for four, five and six years and counting…
I'm currently very hopeful and excited and I wish there’s an opportunity for us to work together in the future.
Best,
Josiah
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