Why do employees leave?

At the start of every year, organisations are faced with resignations when staff who waited for their 13th cheque return from leave, only to hand in their resignation.

With all signs pointing to a difficult year ahead, what is it that will cause your staff to jump ship in 2016?

Is it in search of greener pastures as the price of living escalates beyond their salary – or will it be other internal factors that cause them to quit?

These are the questions leadership must consider as the year starts to unfold.

One possibility is that as the economy slows down, staff might be tempted to move for very small salary increments.

Leaders must therefore invest time in making sure their staff understand the value of staying and of loyalty.

Many juniors may not be aware of FIFO (first in first out) and planning a career path around this thinking will be critical in an economically unstable work environment.

So when the fight for top talent is greater than ever, what can be done to avoid “resignation season”?

One proven way of gathering insights into why employees leave, is to conduct exit interviews.

But while exit interviews may be effective, in some ways they are too late.

A different step towards retention is to understand why some employees remain with a company, and this can be achieved by staging interviews with longer tenured employees (with the company for three or more years).

Consider asking these questions informally in face-to-face “staff satisfaction” interviews:

• Why did you come to work here?
• Why have you stayed?
• What would make you leave?
• What are your ‘non-negotiable’ employment considerations? What about your managers?
• What would you change or improve?

Employees require a careful balance of different factors, often beyond financial, to feel truly satisfied and to remain with an organisation.

“Staff satisfaction” interview insights should be played up during interviews with potential candidates being considered for hire. This information could also be worked into staff development plans that assist employees in reaching their own goals – be it a skill objective or a promotion.

While the insights will vary per company and individual, the common themes (the glue that keeps people in companies) likely to emerge, include:

• Colleagues;
• Strong leadership;
• The culture of the organisation / department they work in;
• A caring environment;
• Flexibility in scheduling personal time off;
• Rewards and recognition;
• Small perks;
• An environment which increases confidence and motivation;
• The opportunities for internal promotion and employee career development and the communication of the opportunities that exist for advancement.

Remuneration only serves short-term motivational triggers because as humans we need so much more than just economic satisfaction.

Organisations must therefore address the often overlooked retention factors outside of remuneration that will ultimately succeed in securing long-term commitment from staff.

Few organisations would argue with the need for talent management.

The problem is that organisations often focus so much on what the high- potential employee needs to do to meet the business’s needs, that they lose sight of what the organisation needs to do to meet the employee’s needs.

This is crucial to being effective in engaging and managing talent within the business and high-performing employees are at risk of leaving the company if never told there are career opportunities available to them.

Organisations interested in success have robust talent development programmes that interweave coaching and mentoring within the overall talent strategy.

Targeted coaching by a skilled career coach can be effective and help an employee maximise personal performance.

Career coaching can help employees develop a clearer sense of career direction, giving them a sense of where they are going in the future; a more accurate understanding and appreciation of their abilities and potential; increased clarity, confidence and motivation (soft skills that go a long way towards empowering the individual); and a better grasp of the career options open to them and resources available to help them achieve their goals.

The majority of talent programmes will also use mentoring as a complementary learning method with coaching.

Mentoring is a powerful tool for individuals who want to learn and grow within an organisation, particularly when moving or preparing to move into a new role, or taking on new responsibilities.

While options for the improvement of an organisational culture are many and varied, with a tough year ahead it is important to take into account ways to hold onto staff. Whatever the approach, staff retention is about understanding and working with the disruptive forces that are shaping the future world of work.

•  Lauren Durant is director at Isilumko Activate