The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave: How to Recognize the Subtle Signs and Act Before It's Too Late

Rating:
Summary: It's not just about leaving
Review: If you skip over this book because your company or organization does not have high turnover, you are missing a great opportunity to improve relationships that may help your company be more productive and grow. This book is about observation. What do you look for when someone is not performing up to their ability? Why has your best employee suddenly changed? Within the book are many scenarios and examples of DISENGAGEMENT (leaving, but keeping the body on the payroll). This may be costing you heartache and money.

It is a very well written and researched book that should be in every managers and leaders bookcase. No! On your desk. Do not read and bury this book. Take it to heart and learn its lessons. I am convinced it will pay handsomely.

Rating:
Summary: What you don't know not only can hurt you...it WILL
Review: In Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People, Bradford D. Smart explains why the average cost of a mis-hire is 24 times the annual salary. (That's right: 24 times the annual salary.) I am unaware of what the average cost of losing a highly-valued employee would be but it must certainly be substantial. This book is based on a wealth of research conducted by or in collaboration with the Saratoga Institute. The observations and conclusions which Branham shares are wholly consistent with what has been revealed by countless other research studies. According to Branham, there are four fundamental human needs. If one or more are not being met, an employee becomes dissatisfied, less productive, perhaps disruptive, and usually leaves. These needs are for trust and hope as well as for feeling a sense of worth and of having competence. No news there.

This book's value is derived from what Branham has to say about seven less obvious (if not "hidden") needs. He focuses on several "subtle signs" by which to identify them and then suggests how to take appropriate action before it is too late. For example, Reason #1: the job or workplace was not as expected. Whose fault is that? Could be those involved in the interview/hiring process who over-sold the job; could be the person hired. Perhaps blame must be shared by everyone directly involved. In any event, Branham explains HOW to recognize the warning signs of unmet expectations, identifies obstacles to meeting mutual expectations, and suggests eight specific "engagement practices" for matching mutual expectations. Branham also devotes an entire chapter to each of the other six reasons, followed by two appendices, each of which all by itself is well worth the cost of this book. Appendix A offers a "Summary Checklist of Employer-of-Choice Engagement Practices"; Appendix B offers "Guidelines and Considerations for Exit Interviewing/Surveying and Turnover Analysis."

Experts on employee relations agree with experts on customer relations that feeling appreciated is ranked among the three most important attributes, with compensation and cost ranked anywhere from 9th to 12th. If the research studies are reliable (and I believe they are), what they indicate is that the best employees and the best customers "leave" for the same "hidden reasons" which Branham examines in this book. If your organization is experiencing such losses, this is a book which should be read and then re-read ASAP. However, Branham's book is essentially worthless if appropriate actions are not then taken immediately. Perhaps policies and procedures need to be revised. Perhaps feedback surveys need to be conducted. Perhaps there are communication problems to be solved. Branham can help each reader to measure the nature and extent of what must be done. Then do it!

Rating:
Summary: Why People Leave
Review: When did you last leave a company voluntarily--on your own initiative? With lay-offs so common many of us have not had this luxury, at least not in a while. If you did at some point in your career, did the company ask "Why are you leaving?" or "What could we do to keep you?" To ask those questions effectively one must care about people and believe that individual satisfaction is relevant to corporate success. Most employers neither care nor believe. After all, this is business, right?

Employers who do care about their people are those most likely to read this, Leigh Branham's second book on retention (his first is Keeping the People Who Keep You in Business, 2001). In fact, they are the ones for whom the book was written: "Many managers will never get it... But many managers do get it, and do care... This book is for the managers, executives, business owners, and human resource professionals who care (p. 5)."

Unfortunately, those who care are those who least need to read this book. The employers who treat their employees as commodities--as a means to the end of profitability--are the most important audience for this writing and the least likely to read it. Branham sums up the thinking of such employers in the book's fifth chapter: "The bottom-line assumption... is that the needs of the organization supersede the needs of the individual... (p. 52)."

And yet employers who do care about their people demonstrate measurably greater financial rewards than their indifferent or malicious counterparts, according to a reliable and growing body of research. OK, but should employers care about their employees because it will make them more money? And just how will that work when the going gets tough? My experience with several top companies caught in industry downturns, mergers, or flat revenue growth is that those in charge tend to put the same value on people in tough times that they--in reality--placed on them when things were better. Even though management may ask for proof of positive return on human resource investment (HROI), upon the delivery of such information they do not become converts from their beliefs that employees are costs requiring reduction. Perhaps it occurs, but I have not yet seen coercive, scheming managers turned into ethical, just leaders by positive HROI. In another recent book on management, James Hoopes has written, "Profit is an admirable thing, but not as a motive for ethics. We admire ethical conduct not when it's easy and profitable but when it hurts (False Prophets, 2003)."

Leigh Branham has done unique and valuable work mining a rich base of data on exit interviews compiled by the Saratoga Institute, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Branham has also done good work in analyzing the data and drawing useful conclusions. The news is not necessarily surprising; however, Branham's writing is clear and his suggestions are practical.

If you are an employer, manager, or human resource professional who cares, then get this book and put as much of it into practice as possible in your organization.