Actual Comments on Why Employees Leave:

“I never met my supervisor until I had been there for eight months. The only reason I met her is because my never before met supervisor had to come over from another building to fill in for a person that left. The supervisor apologized saying she was sorry that it had taken her so long to get over there to meet me. She said she had been very busy. That just does not seem right to me.”

The Solution

Corporate structures of a work environment are set up for a reason. Although some people feel like they have too many bosses, most employees rely on their supervisor to direct their actions at work. A supervisor typically has many responsibilities and wears many hats. He or she must create a training schedule, oversee members of the team, evaluate team members, and most importantly, hold employees accountable for their actions. Supervisors help ensure that their team members’ assigned tasks are completed in a timely manner, as well as help with team dynamics to resolve any problems that may arise.

A supervisor’s leadership is particularly important when a new employee comes on board. New employees rely more on management because they’re not yet familiar with their new role in the organization.

In the exit interview comment above, the uninvolved supervisor’s lack of support contributed to employee turnover. Supervisor issues, including the one addressed above, can lead to disruption in work flow and on-the-job mistakes. This can create an environment where employees feel unsupported, and where preventable turnover becomes an issue.

Another element that makes a supervisor-employee relationship successful is communication. The turnover cause in the employee’s comment above was directly linked to supervisor issues. This particular case was due to a lack of communication from the supervisor. It should be remembered though that communication is a two-way street. In this case, the employee could have tried to engage her supervisor by taking the initiative to introduce herself. Communication between a supervisor and an employee needs to be one built on trust. If an employee is truthful about any problems he or she is having in getting the job done, a supervisor is more likely to help expedite a small issue before it becomes a full-blown crisis.

From the responses collected from HSD Metrics’s ExitRight® exit interviews in 2012, supervision continues to be the number one cause across all industries that people left their jobs. This is based upon 27,244 completed interviews in 2012.

(This blog post is brought to you by HSD Metrics, an exit interview company that helps companies reduce employee turnover by providing automated reference checking, exit interviews, and by measuring employee retention. The comments from exiting employees that are featured in this blog are collected from actual exit interviews conducted using ExitRight®, HSD Metrics’ exit interviewing service. If you are interested in learning more, contact us today. Because we place the privacy of our clients at the top of our priority list; the names of all involved parties are kept completely confidential.)