Comments on: 5 Reasons Why Great Employees Leave

By: bobbie

bobbie — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:09:53 +0000

I am currently working in a 104 bed hospital and there are only 2 people in my field that work here.I work 5 days a week 8am to 5pm,my counterpart works 1pm to 9pm so our shifts overlap,you would never believe that the 2 of us are at work at the same time due to the fact that my name is the only name you will hear paged.The other person I am supposed to be working with seems to be able to dodge her work respnsibilities and managements looks the other way,when I have complained of this I keep getting told that they will speak to her and that they need to document her behavior before reprimanding her,however it has been 2 years and there seems to be no relief in sight and even though I know that my work ethic is superior I am now at a high lecel of disgust with my boss.I am seriously looking for a new job and am now working on my exit interview.The stress associated with my currnt position is more than I can tolerate,and I feel very bad for leaving the coworkers that I have come to known and care about for this reason.Thank you for allowing me to post my reasons for leaving my job

By: RegularJoe

RegularJoe — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:06:31 +0000

My take is that, all things being nearly equal, people ultimately leave a job because they don’t “enjoy” it. Why would they not enjoy their job?…their work is not valued, their supervisor is irrationally demanding, poor workplace communications and inability to link their contribution to overarching goals, “friction” among employees, festering problems that are not addressed,… The single most important step a company can do, is to either select their first-line and second-line supervisors to be skilled communicators with an understanding of both the technical work and human behavior…or provide strong interpersonal communications training. The ultiimate goal is for the employee to look forward to coming to work.

By: CN

CN — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:22:53 +0000

What about morally bankrupt management? For example: Management keeps the town idiot at a very senior position because he fooled them years ago and now that his knowledge gaps can no longer fool people management continues to turn a blind eye – because they put him there! At the end of the day no developer like being handed the time bombs coded by this guy; His work just plain sucks. But delusional management still pumps the mantra of how great this fool is but other developers know better.

Note to the delusional manager: Eventually the good developers will tire of this routine and exit. Do something quick and either demote this clown or promote the others less you’ll be left with the dead sea effect. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/12/2241216&from=rss

By: CK

CK — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:55:05 +0000

As I had said above – we lost a ’star’ due to past abuse of this person. Now they are realizing how much this one person did and knew. All the while the ones who knew of the abuse are cheering for her escape … and that there is hope for the rest of us still here!

By: Losing Top Performers — it isn’t ALWAYS your fault « Crossderry Blog

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:52:39 +0000

[...] there’s a title to aspire to) hits on five reasons why great employees leave organizations (here). Phil’s reasons are perfectly valid, but losing stars isn’t always a [...]

By: Fitzzzgerald

Fitzzzgerald — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:18:02 +0000

My 2 cents:
Superstars (and any good employee really) will absolutely leave over money, if they are not getting compensated fairly. If you are not paying market value for your superstar you are tacitly saying you do not value them. So if there is a superstar employee don’t make the mistake of giving them the ’standard’ 3-7% raise because they are worth much more than that, and it costs a heckuva lot more to replace them.

Other things that drive off superstars are work environments where they are criticized unfairly or where there is a lack of trust from management. Micromanagement will do it too.

An obstinate, slow-moving company drives away star employees too. People who overachieve want to make a difference and a company that stymies and stalls improvement and change will frustrate star employees. When they find a place where they can make more of a difference they’ll go there.

By: CK

CK — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:27:08 +0000

@Phil – I’m working on that but the local economy is pretty poor around here. I have a friend in Microsoft who is looking for me as well. My friend was trapped here for some time before escaping to MS! My friend was in for a culture shock with MS – they are actually friendly (compared to the hostile area we worked in)!

I am currently rebuilding my website and thinking of building another general site and asking for friends/former classsmates who are looking for jobs as well and to join their sites as links … just have to come up with a site name …

By: Phil Gerbyshak

Phil Gerbyshak — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:39:21 +0000

CK – Hope you get out of there.

Michael – Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll fix that.

By: Michael Haberman, SPHR

Michael Haberman, SPHR — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:33:58 +0000

Good post Phil. Just one correction. Kris Dunn at HR Capitalist is a Male, not a Female. :-)

By: CK

CK — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:47:58 +0000

Of all the books and articles written by experts in the field of leadership, management, and business, my division runs counter to their advice.

My division has gone through several of the “Improvement Programs” like “Fish” only to fail. The reason is that the divisional culture is self-serving at best. The very top echelon are just now looking into passing some “ethics” guildlines but is stuck in debate.

Upper management are known to lie and have lost all credibility. Quartarly meetings have become mandatory because no one is willing to go to them on their own. This causes more people to arrange doctor appointments during this time than any other time of the year.

Instead of simplifying things they add layers of bureaucracy rather than getting things done. For an example, what use to take 10 minutes now takes two weeks to accomplish – much to the frustration of the customers.