Productivity Boost: Leading Reason Employees Leave

I recently came across a book by Leigh Branham entitled 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave. The "provocation" of the book is that money is often not a key factor in employee resignation, as often assumed.

So why do employees quit their jobs? Reason #2, according to Branham, is a mismatch between the person and the job. Her conclusion is based on striking research that shows "80% of workers feel they are not being allowed to use their strengths on a daily basis, [and] too many managers lack the passion for getting the right people into the right jobs."*

Wow -- that is an incredibly significant insight into the culture of American business.

Let's take a moment to dissect Branham's conclusion, because there are two critical and distinct components:

Part One: Workers feel they are not being allowed to use their strengths on a daily basis.

Notice this statement does not say that workers lack the necessary strengths to be successful. Rather, the statement's basic premise is that workers have strengths, yet those natural talents are being restricted, misunderstood, punished, or ignored. The more I think about this concept, the more absurd it gets. The strengths, the raw talents, are already there. But no one is tapping into them, and management may even be (knowingly or unknowingly) deterring their use.

Part Two: Too many managers lack the passion for getting the right people into the right jobs.

My first thought is "Why?"

Lydia Morris Brown, a reviewer of Branham's book, summarizes the explanation: "For some managers, helping employees grow and use their talents is not a high priority and, for others, they are so rushed to hire that they just hire warm bodies."* To me, there are two solutions to derive from that explanation. First, managers need to adjust their priorities, placing employee growth and maximization of natural talent at the top. Second, the hiring process needs to slow down, so better--as opposed to faster--hiring decisions are made.

What does this mean for you?

If you've experienced any employee turnover, whether one person or one hundred, it is critical that you examine the circumstances of each employee's resignation against these factors. What you may have thought was an isolated situation or unconnected instances, may actually be the result of ingrained organizational culture that is driving out talent from your company.