Early this year, Mark, a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer.
He had heard a lot about the CEO. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office,and the very best technology,even a canteen that served superb food.
Twice Mark was sent abroad for training. “My learning curve is the sharpest it’s ever been,” he said soon after he joined.
Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Mark walked out of the job.
Why did this talented employee leave ?
Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away.
The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called “First Break All The Rules“. It came up with this surprising finding:
If you’re losing good people, look to their immediate boss ..Immediate boss is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he ‘s the reason why people leave. When people leave they take knowledge,experience and contacts with them, straight to the competition.
” People leave managers not companies ,” write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.
Mostly manager drives people away?
HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave,but a thought has been planted. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he looks for another job.
When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information. Dev says: “If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don ‘t have your heart and soul in the job.”
Different managers can stress out employees in different ways – by being too controlling, too suspicious,too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit – often over a trivial issue.
Talented men leave. Dead wood doesn’t.
Good to read this article. & I agree with this survay. that first reason, people leave job, because of Manager.
Regards,
Hiral
Hi Himanshu Sheth , you have really posted a nice post and this is biggest problem right now , even one of my friend left his job from convergys because of hid TL bad behavior .
Hey,
@Hiral:Welcome back to my blog.Seen you after a pretty long time ;-)Yes,may be Managers are really famous among IT employees
@Atul:Thanks for the positive feedback.This problem would be more prevailant and Convergys is just an example.
-Himanshu
Hi Himanshu,
90% of the time these reasons might be true but not always. There could be other personal problems as well.
Regards,
Varada
Hey Varada,
I do agree that this cannot be a solo reason to leave any organization.But study shows along with good pay package,people want good people to work with and this acts as the most driving point to keep employees glued in one company.
-Himanshu
Hi I totally agree with the fact that most people leave because of the managers. i have worked with many bad and few good managers as well. you can realize this fact only if you work with different people.Thanks for posting this aritcle.
Hi Himanshu,
It is my first experience reading your article. Though we know it is a popular fact that “people don’t leave orgs but managers”, hardly we know the essence of it.Another aspect of this is employees also leave the best managers because it is hard for them to accept open and positive feedback from managers!! Do you think??
Gauri.
Hey Gauri,
Welcome to my blog 🙂 I definitely agree to your point.In most of the cases,there is one way feedback that happens from the Manager to the employee but,the other channel of communication(from the employee to the Manager) does not happen.This is where a good manager stands out from an average Manager who does not have the guts to listen to negative feedback.
-Himanshu
Hi Himanshu,
Just came across this Blog and I completely 100% agree with the survey. I have worked in a great company which knew about this reason, and they actually implemented a system (Customer Mania) which was also aimed toward internal customers (i.e Team Member is a customer of Team Leader, and so on, and so forth).
I myself wanted to take my experience from this awesome company, and help express these views and ideas into other companies. And ironically, it was me that left the next 3 companies due to ‘Unappreciative Management’.
However, I will say the Team who worked with me in these 3 other companies also appreciated the Positive Shadow which I aimed to cast for the Team. Whereas MY immediate Supervisors were casting a Negative Shadow through mistrust, suspicion, and at one point trying to ‘work me out’ of the company.
Love the blog, and you will definitely see me commenting on more things like this.
Adam McHugh
Hi Himanshu,
I totally agree with you.For example,some have gone up the hierarchy just because of promotion.Its a question whether its a right decision to promote a person in a managerial level without any management degree.I have seen quite a lot who know they cannot do anything apart from doing their 9-5 job and slowly go up the ladder.2months of training and manager is decided.Do the person posses all the skills of a manager??
Hi Himanshu, it was a very good post which reveals the truth why employees leave the job but can u help me in making a questionnaire . i m doing a 100 marks project on attrition in BPO industry. so i need a questionnaire to be answered by some of the BPO employees which will be related to reasons of attrition.
kindly reply me as fast as u can
Regards,
Amrit