When an employee leaves it is not an event. It is due to disengagement that can take days, week, months or years. The steps that occur prior to employees leaving are predictable.
Enthusiastically start the job
Question the decision to stay after several bad experiences
Think seriously about quitting
Try to change things
Resolve to resign
Consider the cost of resigning
Passively seek alternative employment
Actively seek alternative employment
Get a job offer
Resign and start a new job
or Resign without a new job
or stay and disengage
The cost of finding and hiring a good staff member is averaged at $4870 in Australia but any person in business know that the cost is far greater.
Most managers spend so much time preoccupied they fail to notice where their employees are. In my experience through managing in a multinational corporation, partnership with Australia’s largest Real estate groups and several local firms, the reality is choosing a good manager has nothing to do with qualifications, and everything to do with education.
Education is gained by experience and communication, if your manager can’t communicate effectively or keep appointments, then your business is greatly diminished.
How does a manager stop someone leaving?
There are two opportunities, the first is when disappointment or bitterness arises, this can be due to several possible circumstances. The second is when the employee has decided to leave. However, due to the lack of economic understanding by many managers, many staff are now on casual employment, this means once a staff member has decided to leave, the manager has lost this opportunity.
The reason why staff leave is due to purely personal needs.
Employees need to trust their employers
Employees need to have a feeling of hope that a business is improving etc.
Employees need to feel valued
Employees need to feel competent
Employees need to feel stable
If there is a breach of trust, a failure to attend scheduled meetings, a perceived lack of honesty or integrity in management, it will lead to staff leaving. If the circumstances that lead to these feelings are public, then staff will generally leave on mass.
The most common reasons employees have given for resigning are as follows -
The job wasn’t as expected.
The job doesn’t match the employee’s personality
There is little coaching or feedback especially written feedback.
There is a lack of growth and advancement opportunities.
Employees feel devalued or unrecognized
Employees suffer from stress, from overwork and a lack of work-life balance
There is a loss of trust and confidence in managers
Managers are challenged with creating a culture of trust and integrity. These virtues create a bond and a sense of employee engagement. The tone of this engagement is always set by the managers or leaders in an organization.
If a manager/s lacks integrity or are untrustworthy, then you will see issues manifest themselves in the workplace. There will be a lack of enthusiasm, professionalism and increasing complaints from clients and staff alike.
An active resistance to bad business practice and the questioning of bad decisions is not only important to keep managers well informed and provide important feedback.
A good manager will Inspire trust and confidence in their staff. This is done by sharing a clear vision, workable plans, consistency and competence. However, once the bonds are broken then it is difficult to repair.
For many companies the resignation of several staff, especially in a short period of time, affirms conspicuous issues, but, by the time many companies recognise the problem, clients have already moved on.
