This is one situation that most of the mid-size companies face. And this is the most haunting situation especially when the entire project depends on the shoulders of a few experienced individuals. If those individuals leave, its a step backwards for the company. In this article, I have discussed the 5 most prominent reason why your employees want to leave the job.
Here are the 5 most common reasons why employees leave the company
It is pretty hard to tell the exact reason for bulk resignation but after reading lots of articles and adding my personal experience to that I’m able to compile a list of 5 most common reasons for which your company might face employee shortage.
#1. Bad hire gain power
This is perhaps the most common reason of all. When a company becomes stable (5-15 year old), the people who originally started the company promote themselves from their positions and focus on the more important stuff (bringing more business to the company).
Now, in order to do so, they need someone to take their position. And the most obvious way is to look into their current employee staff and pick the most senior person to manage all their affairs. And sometimes this decision results in bad people gaining more power over others.
If a self-centered, selfish person is given power to manage people, the situation can get really messy faster than you can imagine. A selfish person will think about himself over others. And this will stop the innovation inside the company because no one would want to share their knowledge to someone who doesn’t values it.
This doesn’t stop here. It leads to another major reason and that is Favoritism.
#2. Favouritism
This is a practice of giving unfair preferential treatment to one person or the group at the expense of another.
With the bad person getting promoted to the management position, the first thing he does is to create a shield around him. This shield includes people that he has good connections with. This is a shield of people that will listen to him and do exactly as he says. These are the group of Obsequious  people also known as bootlickers in English and “Chamcha” or “Chaatu” in Hindi.
So if your company has a higher number of such people, then be prepared to lose employees. Nobody would want to work in such an environment and the first thing they do is look someplace else.
Even my advice for the employees of such company would be pack and run. Because one day or another those obsequious people will make you do things against your will. And this is the time when your job starts to feel like hell.
The situation becomes even worse if these people are inadequate/unworthy of their position. This takes us to the third reason.
#3. Inadequate people drives the project
Combined with the above two situations, this becomes lethal for the company’s survival.
First of all the leader who is driving the project is obsequious. Secondly, he is working for himself and not for the company. And thirdly he has got the power. So there is no one to go and complain.
If such a person who lacks the knowledge is asked to run the entire project then project starts to sink before it takes the pace.
This is a kind of work environment that will disrupt employees and all your basic concepts and makes them look like a moron every time they speak up. And this is especially because the person driving the project would not give the credit to anyone for their advice. And after sometime, the employees will stop taking an active part in the discussion and this will be the decline of the project’s progress.
This will severely affect the project development and things will start to fall apart. And once the project starts to fail, the blames game will take rise.
#4. The Blame Game
Once the project starts to fall apart, which it will because it is being driven by inadequate people. Someone needs to be accounted for it. This is the time where the Blame Games starts.
To save themselves they will start putting the fingers on others.
They will become rude towards your loyal employees and will try to find their weaknesses.
This is the time when the good employee starts to feel like he is getting targeted. Every wrong move will be accounted on his shoulders and will be asked for the clarification.
If an employee ever finds himself in such a situation, he is only left with two options. Either he fights back or starts to look for another job.
If he chooses to fight back, he is doomed to lose because the entire hierarchy to the top is filled with selfish people. Say if he go and complaint to his Project Manager about the Project Lead, the manager will tell on him to the Project Lead. And now the project lead will make sure his life is miserable every second he stays inside the building.
So in short, he is left with only one option. That is to Leave the company and move someplace better.
#5. Bad Company Policies
Company policies show how much the company respects its employees. And if the company policies are not good then the office feels more like a prison.
I want to list down a few policies that actually affect employees state of mind towards the company.
In/Out time as a Disciplinary Action
If your company starts watching the in/out time as a strict disciplinary action then it negatively affects the company because now the employee won’t work with full potential. They will only come to the office to run the 8-hour clock and leave as soon it is over.
Strictly, In/Out time bound policies are not required at all. Loosen up a bit if you are still following anything like that.
No appreciation for working extra-time
This is another very important aspect of company policies. If the employee is working overtime due to the project requirement, then his efforts must be appreciated and accordingly rewarded.
OT for extra time could be a great factor for keeping the employees motivated. That way they would be willing to put in extra hours so that they would be able to take off time when they need it, without dipping into their vaccinations and personal time bank.
Conclusion
As you read, it all boils down to two simple rules if you want to prevent employee loss.
- Pay extra time and money into hiring
- Give your employee freedom
One of the most famous quotes from Steve Jobs that always reminds me of the person I want for my company is:
It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.
~ Steve Jobs
So, if your company is losing employees fast, then you may want to consider the points I mentioned above.
And let me know if you agree with me or 🙂
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