By Hardik Vaidya:
If you think money is the prime reason for everyone to leave their jobs, you have plenty of reasons to be wrong. In the book First Break All the Rules: What The Worlds’ Greatest Managers Do Differently, authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman said that people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers. Lets face it, no company will ever say that they are not in need of good manpower. Every company needs capable hands to expand itself. No exception. A great manager, irrespective of the pay, has the power to command loyalty from his/her subordinates. Companies however ideal in their mission, tend to get skewed towards their employee policy thinking that all of them are disposable objects and can be replaced with new ones.
An example that reminds me of the sheer employee frustration and disloyalty is in the Bollywood movie Rocket Singh. I couldn’t help notice how remarkably similar the situation in the movie was to that of the real life employee. Ranbir Kapoor, the protagonist feels unappreciated and completely uninspired because his senior management continuously kept failing to recognize his needs and the strength of his skill sets. He was academically quite a poor student, but was a fabulous salesman. Following the series of events that left him completely de-motivated, he decides to venture out on his own. When his company starts bagging new orders, he, along with his other partners, decides to leave his full time day job in order to pursue a dream where they felt in alignment with their self respect, mission and felt appreciated. During his entrepreneurial journey, he realizes that businesses were all about keeping people (customers) and the employees happy. People are not numbers, they are humans. The protagonist’s previous employer failed to realize that. Humans at their core, wish to be appreciated and respected. Genuinely.
For great talents, money, power or perks are not the primary driving factors to come to work everyday, they are driven by a passion to make impact. To change things they wish to change. High impact performers need autonomy to do things. They will lead with their best, if showered with trust and support. They are pro-active people who seek out opportunities to grow. However, companies tend to lose them because of not managing their basic expectations well.
Inspiration gets killed in bureaucracy and manipulation. Employees want to come everyday to work because something inside them wants to do work that is awesome, people who appreciate that their work is awesome and give them opportunities to grow. Quite often, people who care about the organization the most are also the ones who have the courage to stand up and voice their opinion against things that are wrong. Ironically, most companies resist change and any form of valid suggestions that do come up are not given their due recognition. It is easy to spot the differences between people who are noisemakers from the ones who are genuinely concerned. You need the concerned individuals in your firm. Employees don’t leave on knee jerk reactions. They slowly start drifting from one side to the other. It is quite gradual. The leadership should have the eye to see that coming and take corrective actions. Else the organization will have a large de-motivated work force just jumping to quit.
Try this the next time, when an employee wishes to quit, really listen to that person. Maybe he or she is telling you something. Do not doubt their intentions or commitment; maybe, reflect on your own functioning. Most often they aren’t really leaving because of reasons that you don’t comprehend.
They are leaving you!