The Truth About Why Employees Stay and Why They Go

If you are a manager concerned about turnover, employee engagement, or the high costs of chronic employee under-performance, then you need to think carefully about why people really stay in a job or why they choose to leave their position and their organization.

In my experience, people do not leave organizations to seek out other opportunities because of communication, leadership, or culture. They leave because of what communication, leadership, and culture make or do not make in their experience at work.

The primary lens through which most people seem to evaluate their ability to remain in a job with their organization is the quality of their direct relationship with their supervisor. If the patterns are productive and reasonably conducive to a satisfactory working life, then people typically stay. When they get past the point of tolerable, people who have a choice will often leave that organization.

So, how can managers and leaders spot the high-potential people that may take their talent elsewhere? My new book, Beyond the Job Description, covers this theme in great detail. And, I wrote an article for Monster.com that provides a set of tools manager’s can consider when evaluating their role in sustaining a great workplace culture (you can read the rest of the article here).