Is Lack of Employee Engagement Why Good Employees Leave?

by Laura Benjamin, Colorado Career and Communication Coach

It's happened again. You spent all that time posting the job, waiting for responses, sifting and sorting through tons (and tons!) of resumes, interviewing (again and again), until you finally got the "right" person on board. You thought they were doing fine. They seemed to be happy. Nobody ever mentioned to you there was anything amiss. Yet today they turned in their resignation. Got a better offer, it seems. Nothing personal, they say. Just moving on to pursue better professional development opportunities.

Right.

Is that what they told you and your Human Resources folks? They're lying through their teeth, pal. They've been worried about this and planning it for months - probably since the first week they arrived. And you never knew? Of course not. You're always the last to know.

If you're losing good people and you don't know why, perhaps the model below will help you see the warning signs before it's too late. Oh, you say it's not a problem now? You say that all the disgruntled folks have left and these new hires are different?

Oh really...

Have you considered the possibility that maybe it's NOT them? Maybe it's YOU? Or maybe it's got something to do with the work environment, the leadership staff, the conditions under which people have to work? It could be a combination of all those things and more.

But for starters, let's dissect the despair and departure cycle, so you know the history of how these decisions to leave are made.

The Disallusionment, Despair and Departure Cycle

There is a natural, predictable cycle people go through as they grapple with the possibility they made the wrong choice. You could probably apply this model to personal relationships as well, but that would be another subject (and another article) for the future. People don't usually go from "Wow, I'm glad I work here" to "Boy, this place sucks and I'm outta here" in the space of a few days. It takes time and here's how it usually unfolds:

The Honeymooner: enthusiastic, high energy, open to learning, eager to contribute, helpful

The Remorseful Buyer : questions their choice to work for you vs. someone else

The Change Agent: hopes change will occur to validate their decision and keep them from having to start the job search process all over again

The P&L Person: quantifies the cost of quitting vs staying, considers the time it will take, the loss of pay/benefits, the energy it will require and the damage to one's resume and reputation

The Passive/Aggressive: hasn't quite gotten up the courage to quit but starts to put out feelers, verbalizes dissatisfaction to some friends and co-workers, may tell supervisor "I hope things start to change around here soon" or other implied threats of leaving, performance may drop

The Door Prize: Starts to get offers and recognizes their value, may negotiate with you for better pay/new responsibilities/new supervisor, feels on top of the world, may leave quickly or may offer to stay if changes are made

OR

The Deadbeat: Doesn't get offers and knows they have to stay, disrupts and infects others, performance sinks, top performers get disallusioned and leave, key customers are driven away

If You Do What You've Always Done...

This is the ultimate Bermuda Triangle of business failure. You're gonna lose a ton of money if you allow the downward cycle to continue. You can only ignore it for so long before it bites you in the "you know what".

In Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant (W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne), the authors cite examples in Chapter 7 on how to overcome organizational hurdles. One great example was the New York City subway system. In the 1990's, fearful citizens boycotted the subway complaining of crime and revenues plummeted. Yet transit police numbers showed only 3% of the city's major crimes happened on the subways.

The solution? Newly appointed Police Chief Bratton made top and middle brass ride the subway (nicknamed the "electric sewer") day and night. They experienced first-hand what citizens were talking about - an environment of anarchy and fear from petty crimes, aggressive begging, winos, graffiti, people jumping turnstiles and roving gangs. Until they saw and experienced the worst for themselves, they couldn't understand the true nature of the problem. Numbers don't tell all.

Get Better Than You've Always Gotten

It's not difficult to make a change, to stop the hemmoraging, to attract good people and keep them. Here's what you do:

First, find out the real reasons why people leave. What they tell HR is not usually the real reason, by the way. And the only way you're going to get this information is to call them up and ask them, once they've settled happily into their new job. At that point, they've had some time and distance to be objective and won't be worried about a poor reference coming back to bite them.

Oh, have you heard that retailiation lawsuits are big business for lawyers right now? Yessir. Companies usually win on the original complaint but lose BIG BUCKS due to retailiation complaints that result when employees feel they weren't treated fairly after the fact. So once that fear of retalition is gone, you'll get better information from these folks.

Second, have the guts to hold Town Hall Meetings and ask employees for feedback. You may need an objective outsider (that would be me) to come in and facilitate these sessions. Why do you need an objective outsider? Because no one wants to be called "not a team player" or "troublemaker" when they open their mouths to supervisors or HR. Few folks want to take the risk of speaking their mind to an inside authority figure, knowing it could come back to haunt them in the future.

It's possible they've also given up hope that it would do any good. How many times are internal "employee satisfaction surveys" reported specific complaints and no one ever does anything about them. Or, frontline leaders actually sat around a meeting table, reviewed the results and then said, (true story here) "Oh, they don't know what they're talking about. They didn't really mean that."

Then, have the guts to hold supervisors and managers accountable for results. They need to fix what's broken, eliminate obstacles and be responsible for creating a company where people want to work. It's often the relationship with the frontline manager that drives people out the door. Many will admit that they'd much rather work for someone they admire, respect and get along with than be in the job of their dreams. We've all left jobs we like because of bosses we don't.

Third, identify the "electric sewer" irritants or "broken windows" that are constant in-your-face reminders that this isn't a good place to work. You know the way you feel when you drive through "that" part of town? You lock the doors of your car, roll up the windows and look for the fastest path to the interstate. This is what your folks feel when small things are constantly amiss. They could be operational problems, systems issues, the way their supervisor talks (or doesn't talk) to them. These are the low hanging fruit that can be quickly and easily eliminated or improved. If the small irritants continue, people increasingly feel like there could be more serious problems under the next rock.

(When I was in the service, this is one of the ways the Inspector General would decide how long to stay on your base. If there were dust bunnies in the corners, you could bet they'd dig deeper and further into your files!)

Last but Not Least

Certainly, there are many more ways you can retain good talent and make your company a place that people are dying to work at. Great books I'd recommend include, First Break All the Rules by Curt Coffman and Marcus Buckingham, Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne and Winning, by Jack Welch. I'd also recommend making talent retention and development a priority within your company. If you've ever heard the saying, "Happy cows give more milk" you'll know what I mean about happy employees driving profits. You can't expect to have a successful company for long if the philosophy is "we make money in spite of ourselves" (another true story).

The information on this web site is copyright © 2001-2008 by Laura Benjamin and Pinehurst Press Ltd. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved. Permission to reprint with attribution please and a live link to http://www.LauraBenjamin.com. Please contact me to complete any "Permission to Use Copyrighted Material" documentation. Thank you in advance!

Laura Benjamin is a Colorado Communication, Career and Marketing Coach, professional speaker, strategic planning facilitator and writer. She is also the Author of The C.A.R.L.A. Concept™: How to Raise an Issue, Prove Your Point and Communicate with Confidence & Clarity. To interview Laura or access her free educational and entertaining audio podcasts, blog posts and articles, please visit www.LauraBenjamin.com.