Talented people choose to leave organizations for a simple reason: Talent has options.
The further you slide back along the excellence curve, the fewer options those lesser performers will have. Because of that, mediocrity tends to stay. But top performers live with a different realism. They will be courted by other companies, recruited by headhunters, called by friends and co-workers trolling for hiring bonuses, and wooed by competitors. They do not stay because they have to; they stay because they want to.
Smart companies know this — that talent has options — and protect themselves by proactively dealing with the four top reasons someone might choose to leave. These four are:
- The person is not growing.
- He or she does not care for the boss.
- Money.
- He or she lacks confidence in the future of the company or industry.
Here is a quick amplification of each point:
1. They are not growing. Bored or underutilized, talented people want something more from a job than just a paycheck. This is now a challenge because it’s a new reality. The previous leadership generation had time to invest in its people. Today’s leaders must guess. “Who do I invest in? How aggressively do I spend? What do I spend on, knowledge, skills, or other things? If I spend, how do I know they won’t turn right around and leave?”
There’s a lot of pent-up uncertainty in the marketplace that has caused more mediocrity than we have traditionally seen. People are bored, in ruts, and sapped of motivation. Job-hopping used to be frowned up. Now it’s accepted. But job-hopping eliminates continuity and continuity is an enabler when trying to groom a next generation leader.
When someone has had five jobs in five years at five companies, all he or she has really mastered is the art of interviewing.
Where Boomers had patience to learn — fueled by the confidence of trust that their job was provided by an employer who implied two-way loyalty would be rewarded — younger workers do not. Younger employees do not see their work as a long-term thing; and therefore will not commit with blind loyalty, as did their generational predecessors. Because of this dual uncertainty, companies are confused about what to do.
The end game is simple: Figure out a way to make your people grow while keeping them busy substantive work.
2. They do not care for the boss. Multigenerational workforces are often at a disadvantage here, since a boomer boss is often oblivious to the wants, needs, and ambitions of Gen X or Gen Y employees. Every employee needs and deserves a role model peer. This means smart companies fast-track talented young workers who may be less vested in tenure and experience than others on the team.
Companies must also be especially attuned to the emotional experiences of its populace. Surveys, roundtables, and confidential 360 reviews help, but the walls have ears and day to day interactions will tell you who “gets it” and who doesn’t.
Usually you don’t need a survey to tell you which bosses have interpersonal issues and need a coach. Find them, hire help, and hold those bosses accountable for positive change. If they don’t change, replace them. Trust me: You will not have to do this very often. Other problem children will shape up quickly.
3. Money. The heart of retention requires “yes, yes” answers to two questions, “Do you enjoy what you do,” and, “Are you fairly paid for what you’re doing?”
The key word in the second question is ‘fairly.’ Fairly does not mean overpaid, it simply measures alignment with what is right and just for the demands and performance to perform the work successfully.
I always coach my sales clients that regardless how their comp plan is structured, the best ones adhere to a universal truth: “If they sell a lot they make a lot. If they don’t, they don’t.”
Comp equity and fairness is usually more important than nickels and dimes, assuming opportunities are equal. As the economy loosens, so must the purse strings. Otherwise loyal performers whose compensation has been flat for a few years will jump for a bump. And who can blame them?
4. They lack confidence in the future of the company or industry. I am an example of this one. After 20 great years I left Xerox for two reasons:
- I lacked trust in senior leadership after the CEO and his cronies falsified the books to try and fool Wall Street, plus
- I sensed the printing industry was moving from centralized print environments to decentralized convenience print. Since little convenience printers are commodities — and with that shift to cheap local printers would come margin contractions — I knew the end was near to printing’s hub-and-spoke tradition. Since the hub is where the money and fun is, once big machines were being replaced by dozens of cheap ones, I knew the time had come for me to go.
An old sales adage remains true: “If you wouldn’t buy it, you can’t sell it.” I didn’t care about cheap desktop printers and didn’t want to sell them. I collected my toys, trophies, and memories, and sashayed out into the real world to meet and greet whatever lay ahead. Many other top performers saw the same things and chose to do the same.
As the Dow keeps climbing despite Congress’s embarrassing inertia — the Dow today is twice what it was when Obama took office and its highest level ever — the job market will continue to re-expand, especially for good talent.
Talent, as I said, has options. Deservedly so.