Why Employees Quit (Part 2)

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In this episode of The Manager Lab, we're going to review the print edition article, Why Employees Quit. New Research Points to Some Surprising Answers. It's by Ethan Bernstein, Michael Horn, and Bob Moesta. And this came from the November-December 2024 print edition of Harvard Business Review. Now, when I first saw this title, obviously I was drawn to it for reasons that are probably clear. I'm in human resources, therefore I'm always interested in why employees leave our organizations.

My first thought was the old adage, people leave managers, not organizations. And after reading this article, I don't think that it has changed my opinion of that truism. I think that's probably still true. This just packages it in a little bit different way and gives us as managers a little bit more information to deal with in terms of what employees are really searching for in this day and age. The article starts out with this provocative statement, the so-called war for talent.

Is still raging. So this hearkens us back to the classic article by McKinsey, War for Talent in the late 90s. And again, we've seen the War for Talent really rage ever since then, just in different ways. Employers continue to rely on the same hiring and retention strategies they've been using for decades, according to this article. So think about your own organization. Is that really true? Are we doing the same things over and over and over and people are still leaving our organizations?

You know, think about what your turnover rate is. If you don't know that, you know, contact human resources and find out. It should be. World-class turnover is around 10%. So anything above that, you probably have some work to do. Now, the article argues that organizations haven't addressed a more fundamental problem, the widespread failure to provide gratifying work experiences. To stick around and keep giving their best, people need meaningful work.

So then managers need to be people who value, respect, and trust their employees and give them opportunities to grow, excel, and to advance in their careers. Now, organizations have tried all kinds of different things, right? We've heard about organizations who invest heavily in wellness benefits and initiatives, you know, to mixed results. Organizations who have tried mentoring programs, again, mixed results.

Learning and development initiatives and programs that, again, maybe start strong but don't have lasting power. The article says that we haven't really identified what employees want from them, from the organization. And really, it's largely about making sure we're having conversations that delineate what those things are. The article says that we found again and again that employees who quit their jobs do so because they aren't making the progress they seek in their careers and in their lives.

By supporting people in their personal quests for progress in ways that meet the organization's needs, managers can then create employee experiences that are mutually beneficial. Now, these moves were driven primarily by four different quests, and we'll get into those in just a second. Before the article moves into those, it talks a little bit about attrition being a very persistent problem and a very costly problem.

Departures are very expensive. So when I was in the pharmaceutical industry, we would typically use 1.5 to two times a person's salary. That was the cost of them leaving the organization. This particular article cites somewhere between six and nine months worth of that person's compensation, but for more technical positions, more executive level roles, you know, up to twice the employee's salary. So we're still in line there.

The bottom line is when in this research, people aren't even clear themselves about why they leave organizations. And not until they sit down with an interviewer, a coach, a trusted colleague, a trusted friend who can help them kind of unravel it, they don't even know. And some people leave organizations over and over and over again, really never searching or finding what they're searching for.

Okay, so let's look at the forces that compel job moves. Now, I would encourage you to go back and listen to part one if you haven't, because we talk about that in great detail. Basically, the push and pull of a job switch. So commonsensically, negative experiences will push people out of organizations, and then the potential for a more positive experience elsewhere, will pull people out of our organizations. That's the push and pull.

And again, I went through several examples of those in part one of this podcast. So go back and take a look at that. Okay, now let's get into the four quests for progress. People who change jobs do so because they want to do one of four things. Number one, they just want to get out of their current situation. Number two, they want to regain control of their work-life balance. They've somehow got into a situation where their work life is really tugging on their personal life.

Number three, they want to regain alignment between their work and their knowledge and capabilities. So they're, to use good to great analogy, they're in the wrong seat on the bus. Or they want to simply take the next step in their career progress. They don't see the next step in your organization. They're looking to take the next step. Interestingly enough, the quests here, according to these authors, have little to do with career progression as it's traditionally defined.

Steady, linear ascent from a junior position to a senior position. Things that, you know, we think about career ladders and that very sequential approach. Rather, these authors argue that progress really zigzags according to what the individual wants, to get most out of the work and their life at a particular time, which means that we can't just interview someone once and think that they're going to be on that same path for years.

We must follow them every day. We must follow them every week, every month. We must follow them throughout their career progression so that we can pick up on these subtle shifts in their personal demands so that we can help them orchestrate their career progression more easily. Okay, let's try to look at each of these quests really quickly, and then we'll probably wrap this podcast up and pick up in part three next time. Number one, people who just need to get out of their current situation.

They're either being managed in a way that they feel stuck. They're over their heads. They don't know what to do about that.

They face very steep obstacles. Whatever reason, they're strongly at odds with their work environment and they want a new job to hopefully rescue them from their current one. That's number one, just to get out. Number two is to regain control. They want more predictability in their life. They want more flexibility in their life on when they can work and where they can work.

You know, they may feel actually pretty good about their overall trajectory, but not so good about the speed at which they're moving. And so they will just kind of hang around until they find a job that will give them more agency over their work environment. Okay. Third one is to regain alignment. Basically, again, they feel like they're probably on the wrong seat. Right bus, perhaps, wrong seat, but they don't see a seat in the current bus that they're on.

They may be that there's a lack of respect from their manager. They're hunting for a job where their skills and experiences will be more fully utilized, appreciated and acknowledged. And they're just lacking that validation, either from their manager or from their organization. And they're looking to regain alignment. And then finally, just they don't see the next step within their organization.

They've got to look outside the organization. In many cases, that means maybe taking on more responsibility, more stretch assignments. Often driven by a desire to just make more money, to support themselves or their families, maybe better benefits, more comfortable living environment, ability to pay for, you know, everyday basic needs, saving for college. They just need to make more money. They aren't necessarily reacting to a bad situation.

They're just pursuing growth, and they may be willing to leave the organization to take a chance on that. So armed with this knowledge about quests for progress and the forces behind them, we as managers can then work with our employees to tailor experiences, even their roles, to help them achieve the progress that they seek.

And the article goes into three different ideas, and we'll cover these in the next podcast. But number one, interviewing people long before they head for the exit. That's number one. Number two, develop shadow job descriptions that really speak to what they're actually doing, their needs, the organization's needs, and how we can combine those two to get them the experience that they really need.

And then finally, really partnering with human resources to help employees make the progress that they desire. We'll cover those three ideas in the next podcast. And so that's it for this particular part of the article. Hope you enjoyed that. And until next time that we meet in the manager lab, do good work. Music.