Actual Comments on Why Employees Leave:

“I did the same, repetitive type of tasks because I did them well and I did them fast. I wasn’t offered interesting, new or challenging work. Just crank out the work like a factory.”

The Solution

It is all about work! It appears the manager was more concerned about the work than the employee. This is an unfortunate situation and a lose-lose situation for both the employee and the organization. The company lost the benefit of a productive employee and the employee left with a bitter feeling toward the organization. When employees are not challenged at work, they often lose interest and look for more challenging positions elsewhere. What could have been done to avoid this situation?

• Open communication between employees and managers during the performance management process on an ongoing basis helps facilitate discussions about employees’ work, whether the work is challenging, and what employees’ career development interests are. From the information gathered, future plans can be developed.

• Explore the possibility of a work redesign. In other words are there ways to expand an employee’s job by redesigning certain aspects relating to the scope and depth of what the employee does? Adding tasks that match the employee’s skills, knowledge, and abilities and giving the employee the authority to complete tasks creates a winning environment.

• Acknowledge the employee’s good work. Praise employees publicly for their contributions.

• Mentoring. Take the approach that all employees want to succeed and then mentor them to success.

All of these tactics help organizations thrive by retaining good employees.

(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.)