Why Good Employees Leave

In this challenging economic times, news of people losing their jobs doesn't hit the headlines anymore as it would have about six months ago. Job losses had become a kind of an expectation of just who's going to be next. Those who still have their jobs are all working very,very hard to hold on to them despite all odds. However, there seems to exist a group of highly competent and confident people who would just pack their bags and move out of their jobs, even under these trying times. This group of high performance individuals encounter little difficulty in securing new jobs elsewhere as they are always on the headhunters' priority lists. Such migratory actions are more often than not triggered off by managerial ineffectiveness and talent mismanagement.

Any manager worth his or her salt is able to discern what are the real reasons why good employees leave. According to Leigh Branham, an employee leaves when one or more of the following fundamental human desires are not fulfilled:

1. The Need to Feel Competent - Due to downsizing and restructuring exercises, there may occur job-person mismatches. When such a situation arisen, the affected employee would be compelled to search for new opportunities elsewhere to ensure that this need to feel competent is fulfilled. Stress from overwork and an imbalanced work-life can triggered similar feeling for such need.

2. The Need to Feel a Sense of Worth - In the relentless search for results to stay in the black, managers paid scant or no attention to their "most valuable asset" - people in their organization. If the efforts of people went continually unnoticed, unrecognized and unappreciated, then the people would start to make plan to leave as they felt that their sense of worth has been "devalued" or "depreciated".

3. The Need for Trust - When the job and workplace environment failed to live up to expectations, employees will start looking for new openings outside the organization. This same phenomenon will happen when there's a loss in trust and confidence in the senior leadership
and management team. It could be due to an issue of integrity.

4. The Need to Have Hope - This need is always expressed during every exit interview. Employees place high priorities on available opportunities for self development, career growth and advancement. Young talents are always looking out for coaching and guidance from senior members of the organization. An organization that is able to satisfy this need to have hope would have a higher probability of retaining its talents.

Not knowing or doing anything to keep good people is costly to the organization. Therefore, a competent manager not only knows the reasons why good people leave but also knows how to create an authentically attractive environment acting as a magnet to attract and retain loyal and long term productive employees.