hello everybody,

This article gives us an insight into the problem that lot of us try to solve and the article is an excerpt by Mr 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 softwar e 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 All The Rules: 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 lessto 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 travelling 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.

Have a great day!!!
Kash

I do agree ..most of the employess leave it beause of managers ..i m not in HR function i m in sales function...i haven't heard about the report/study from gallup org ..but i do feel it strongly of what sales has taught me . i handle a team of 11 poeople ..front line sales over in a state ..

what i find people are more attached to kind of supervisors ..its that they bring in security , respect as in individual and work than the organization and levels higher up the ladder

well throw more light on why employess leave the organization..

Jagadish 

Dear Colleagues,

Ofcourse there might be a lot of factors for changing jobs; might be for better or bright future, better monetarry benefits, but one thing is for sure that employees done leave the organisations, but they leave the managers and when the attrition rate is high the 1st thing the company has to look into is find the cause for the attrition and make changes accordingly.

Regards
Mathews

I guess we are all talking about one common thread - human relationship. Unfotunately we see the same thing from 'our own' perspective rather than others. So we as an idividual are equally responsible for sagging relationship. Between a manager and an employee its no different.

If I were to ask you, that my relationship with my best friend or my spouse is on a downturn, will you not, as an outsider, attribute atleast 50% of the fault as mine?

Manager and employee relationship is no different. What is your manager has a stringent goal to meet and he gets his dose from his manager and in turn pushes you harder. Isn't it the language, the choice of words that your manager uses or how honestly is he communicating that puts you off? Maybe the guy, manager, is passing on in the same buck to you that he got from above, may be he doesn't know that it gets rough as you move-up.

Overall, you as an employee are as responsible for quiting as your manager.

Over to the other professionals..

Ayeshaa

It is increasingly diluting of purpose as you come down the line of organizational ladder vis-a-vis personal goals. 

When it comes to decision making we are narrowing choice to performance.

The referential performance frame work one draws for subordinates differes as you come down the organizational ladder - the performance means different to different levels.

Here I strongly remember one of the game presented to us in a management seminar. It was proved in that game that "Acceptance of Employees is most of the time for other reasons than the Performance" - (I am using the word Acceptance in more general term than one way process. For me separation is non-acceptance - it is immaterial whether employee leaves or Organization asks him to leave).

Here we provide space so narrow that it becomes suffocating. The space provided is just enough for Roles to perform not for human beings to perform. This space, therefore, is bound to suffocate some time or other.

Especially, models like 20-80-20 so strongly percolating Corporate society where you mathamatically eliminate employees from Organizations what else one can expect ?

"Life-time Employment Concept" slowly died out with both - employer-employee becoming GREEDY in relation to each other.

This seems to me to be the primary reason.

Some basic analysis needs to go into raw data before making any assumptions about what is the likely cause of the employees leaving.

simple math perhaps..if a number of exits have happened under a particular manager, as against maybe 1 or to under others, it is likely to be concluded that the problem could be with the manager and not with the individual employee... or lets say, greater contribution to the exit was made by the manager than by the employee.

thats akin to a guy who has had several failed marriages - perhaps communication fault is with him and not so much with the different spouses who left him. if the the spouses had an equally strong number of failed marriages themselves, yeah, only then can it be said its possible, both are at fault!

i guess its only after analying numbers properly that we can even make guesses about why employees leave. there is no one universal reason.

Regards
Ash

I differ.. i assume the superior is the hiring Manager; he has major role in his selction...then he has to take care/ grooming of the said employee

I strongly beleive that employee leaves because of his supervisor not for the company...

Regards,

Prashant Thakkar

It is great to see this topic to have come a long way. Here are some perspectives
fron an employer.

As a hardened entrepreneur, I would say just do not bother about employees leaving. They need to lead their lives too!! For emerging companies or employers (especially homegrown) the focus need to be on what they have set to achieve and not who they have with them to achieve. An employer's responsibility would be to reward/share only those who are with the company when the company attains success or results. 

"Life-time Employment Concept" slowly died out with both -  employer-employee becoming GREEDY in relation to each other. 

I still believe in the Japanese Rice Bowl concept (which I learnt decades ago while in manufacturing industry) that upholds Lifetime Employment Concept.

The recent mantra is, if we only yearn for money, chances are that we may end up not making much of it (slitting the goose). Instead, if we focus properly on value creation, chances are very high that we may end up making more money and many more lives.

Thanks all for sharing these very valuable thoughts.

Regards,
Hrushikesh

Specifically, employees typically leave for five reasons:

1. The confidence factor. Organizations often look like they're more out of focus when they're seen internally, rather than externally. It's not always clear to employees what the strategy is, and even when there's a clear-cut strategy, it might not be apparent that it's linked to the long-term mission and health of the organization. When a key employee loses confidence and hope, he or she may begin to think the grass is greener in another company, where there seems to be more focus.

2. The emotional factor. Key employees need to be recognized, rewarded and developed. When employees leave an organization, they often site lack of recognition, inadequate rewards and too little focus on their personal development as reasons to move on. When employers fail to fulfill these needs, they inevitably conclude they have no choice but to move on.

3. The trust factor. A feeling often expressed upon departure is: "There were too many broken promises and commitments that weren't kept. They weren't loyal to me. Why should I remain loyal to them?" Trust is a two-way street--it begins with the employer, and employees respond in kind. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as transference--the ability of one person to transfer his or her care to another. A broken promise, whether implicit or explicit, breaks the underpinnings that support the trust paradigm.

4. The fit factor. Key employees who dedicate themselves to their organizations need to feel as though they fit--that their values and principles match those of the organization. We frequently hear exiting employees say, "I didn't fit in with the team like I used to." It's much easier to leave a manager or team that you don't like, or more importantly, that you believe doesn't like you.

5. The listening factor. Key employees need to believe they're being heard. This is perhaps the most frequently cited reason why employees leave an organization. They believe they're not being heard. Failure to say exactly what's needed and expected of them becomes a hurdle that tires out employees, and ends in statements like, "It isn't worth it anymore." - Excerpt from Philip J. Harkins Workforce Magazine

Regards

Kaushik