After working hard and putting in countless hours to find and develop superstar employees, the last thing you want to do is lose them.
Sometimes the circumstances are beyond your control (and theirs). That’s life. But there are things that you can control—for example, how you treat your employees and what kind of work environment you create.
The Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness (CMOE) compiled five reasons why top talent decide to leave their jobs based on various studies from Florida State University, Randstad, and Accenture/ICR.
Not surprising, the studies’ results had one commonality: People often leave their bosses or companies, not their jobs. When you think about it, that’s probably been the case with your friends and family. I know that this reasoning rings true when people I know have switched jobs. It’s not their responsibilities that they don’t like; it’s their manager or less-than-ideal corporate culture with which they’re not smitten.
Moving on, here are CMOE’s five reasons why people leave their jobs:
- Their bosses are jerks.
- Employees feel that there is a lack of empowerment.
- People don’t think that their companies are effective at managing advancement within the organization.
- Employees never get recognition or appreciation for their work.
- The business is going under.
Not one of the above reasons mentioned unhappiness with job responsibilities. They’re all related to an employee’s manager, the company’s future, or the corporate culture.
What can we learn from this? The best way to retain top talent is to give people a reason to stay. Appreciate the work they do. Congratulate them on a job well done. Show that you trust them by giving them more responsibility and autonomy. Reward them for meeting goals. Provide opportunities for advancement—if not in the form of a promotion, consider further education, conferences or skill-building activities. Basically, you need to be a good leader to retain your superstar employees.
