Scraps Stuffs - Random musings from apun ka desh

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS? - Azim Premji

Every  company  normally  faces one common problem of high employee turnout
ratio.  People  are  leaving  the company for better pay, better profile or
simply  for just one reason' pak gaya '. This article might just throw some
light on the matter...


Early this year, Arun, an old friend who is a senior software designer, got
an  offer  from  a  prestigious  international  firm  to  work in its India
operations  developing  specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer.
He  had  heard  a  lot about the CEO of this company, charismatic man often
quoted in the business press for his visionary attitude.


The  salary  was  great.  The  company  had  all the right systems in place
employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office, and
the  very  best  technology,  even a canteen that served superb food. Twice
Arun  was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's
ever  been,"  he  said soon after he joined. "It's a real high working with
such cutting edge technology."


Last  week,  less than eight months after he joined, Arun walked out of the
job.   He  has  no  other  offer  in  hand  but he said he couldn't take it
anymore.  Nor, apparently, could several other people in his department who
have  also  quit  recently.  The CEO is di stressed about the high employee
turnover. He's distressed about the money he's spent in training them. He's
distressed because he can't figure out what happened.


Why  did  this  talented employee leave despite a top salary? Arun quit for
the  same reason that drives many good people away.  The answer lies in one
of  the  largest  studies  undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study
surveyed  over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in
a book called First Break AllTheRules.


It came up with this surprising finding: If you're losing good people, look
to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the
reason  people stay and thrive in an organization.  And he's the reason why
they  quit,  taking  their  knowledge,  experience  and contacts with them.
Often, straight to the competition.


"People  leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus Buckingham
and  Curt  Coffman.  "So  much  money  has  been thrown at the challenge of
keeping  good  people  - in the form of better pay, better perks and better
training - when, in the end, turnover is mostly manager issue." If you have
a  turnover  problem, look first to your managers.  Are they driving people
away?


Beyond  a  point, an employee's primary need has less to do with money, and
more  to  do  with  how  he's treated and how valued he feels. Much of this
depends  directly  on  the  immediate  manager. And yet, bad bosses seem to
happen  to good people everywhere. A Fortune magazine survey some years ago
found  that  nearly  75 per cent of employees have suffered at the hands of
difficult  superiors.  You  can  leave  one  job  to find - you guessed it,
another wolf in a pin-stripe suit in the next one.


Of  all the workplace stressors, a bad boss is possibly the worst, directly
impacting  the  emotional  health and productivity of employees. HR experts
say  that  of  all  the  abuses, employees find public humiliation the most
intolerable.  The  first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has
been planted.


The second time, that thought gets strengthened.  The third time, he starts
looking  for  another job.  When people cannot retort openly in anger, they
do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By
doing  only  what  they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the
boss crucial information.


Dev  says:  "If  you  work  for  a jerk, you basically want to get him into
trouble.  You don't have your heart and soul in the job."


Different  managers  can  stress out employees in different ways - by being
too  controlling,  too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, but they forget
that  workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on
too long, an employee will quit - often over seemingly trivial issue.


It  isn't the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It's the 99 that went
before.  And  while  it's  true  that  people  leave  jobs for all kinds of
reasons-  for  better opportunities or for circumstantial reasons, many who
leave  would  have  stayed - had it not been for one man constantly telling
them,  as  Arun's  boss  did:  "You are dispensable. I can find dozens like
you."  While  it  seems  like  there are plenty of other fish especially in
today's  waters,  consider  for  a  moment  the  cost  of losing a talented
employee. There's the cost of finding a replacement.


The  cost of training the replacement. The cost of not having someone to do
the  job  in  the meantime. The loss of clients and contacts the person had
with  the  industry.  The  loss  of morale in co-workers. The loss of trade
secrets  this  person may now share with others.  Plus, of course, the loss
of  the  company's  reputation.  Every person who leaves a corporation then
becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse.


We  all know of large IT companies that people would love to join and large
television  companies  few want to go near. In both cases, former employees
have  left  to tell their tales. "Any company trying to compete must figure
out a way to engage the mind of every employee,"


Jack  Welch  of GE once said.   Much of a company's value lies "between the
ears  of  its  employees".   If  it's bleeding talent, it's bleeding value.
Unfortunately, many senior executives busy traveling the world, signing new
deals and developing a vision for the company, have little idea of what may
be going on at home.


That  deep within an organization that otherwise does all the right things,
one man could be driving its best people away.