Employee Attrition is a product – but not of bad leadership, “toxic” work environments or other disempowering metrics. It’s a product of how the employee perceives their workplace and their job, as well as their place within the company. Read on to find out how attrition works, what you are in charge of, and where your power lies in remedying the cause of attrition.
Employee Attrition is a result
The past few years have seen a spike in employee attrition, coined “The Great Resignation”. This massive shift in the global workforce has had far-reaching implications: Companies are on the hunt for new talent, scrambling to keep their current employees in their profession and from burning out or leaving.
More now than ever, companies are paying attention to their high-performing employees in an attempt to retain the best people.
A wise decision, since employee attrition is tremendously costly (every qualified employee leaving can cost a company more than 200% of the leaving employee’s annual salary). Managers are tasked with handling a wave of resignations leaving the rest of the team to pick up tasks that present an additional burden to those who are holding on.
Investing in employee retention is a wise choice – and a delicate matter: Once an employee has made the decision to leave, finding a way to incentivize them to change their mind can present a costly challenge.
It’s not you, it’s me.
As much as it seems like all it takes is offering them “the right” incentive package, the employee’s decision to leave is not about you. Their decision to leave is entirely theirs to make. Even if you are given the reasons for their decision, removing those factors (eg. by increasing their wage, offering them flexible work hours or a flexible location or assigning them additional responsibilities) may actually be counterproductive.
Take, for example, the Senior Analyst who has been tasked with managing a high-impact project that seemed to be in its experimental stage. As the project gains traction and the responsibilities pile up, said employee may be confronted with mental barriers around communicating their need for additional support and leadership feedback. “I don’t want to be a burden” presents as a seemingly viable reason for not speaking up until it is too late. An employee, whose perceived only way out of that pressure is to quit, is not going to be incentivized to stay by being offered additional responsibility, a promotion or a raise. All too often, those are the negotiating tactics employed by companies – a costly effort.
Studies (1) have shown that incentives offered by more senior employees to their leaving junior colleagues reflect what the senior employees perceive as an appropriate measure – in other words, managers act with managers in mind.
Let’s get one thing straight: You are not in control of the choices your employees make. Ever.
And that’s a good thing – for both of you – or you would have to be able to control external factors, such as their financial responsibilities towards their family or community, their ability to create satisfaction within their job, and each employee’s brain.
Attrition is a tale written by those who decide to leave, and understanding the cause of attrition requires understanding the author of the tale – not how those who are staying would like to be incentivized.
What a company’s representatives are in control of is not the leaving employee, but how they tell the story of the company, the vision that the company creates, how they present and represent the company and are in line with the values of the institution.
What a company does have influence over is the tools given to their employees to manage their own perception of their workplace and their job.
Viewing employee attrition as a result of your employees’ individual, empowered decision to leave instead of interpreting it as negative feedback hinting at how you could have acted differently gives them and you the power back.
Your job is not to bend over backwards to make everybody happy, that’s not within your power. Even if you could make everyone happy, you would not be in control of the decisions they make. But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless – far from it.
So what can you do?
If you have been tasked with reducing attrition and retaining employees, your best bet is to pay attention to the feedback your employees give you. Not just the ones leaving. Understanding why your employees stay is worth its weight in gold. Don’t be shy to ask.
Center your employee retention strategy around your employees’ perception of their job and giving them the tools to manage their mind and emotional life at work. This reduces the cost of pouring funds into last-effort bonuses, promotions or other costly measures and presents a far superior, sustainable and strategic approach to your most lucrative asset: your people’s minds.
