Happy employees don’t leave voluntarily. If you’re an employer, it could be worth your time to consider why an employee has decided to depart for the good of your small business, company, organization and your community.
There are the obvious reasons employees move on: more money, lack of advancement opportunities or perhaps a job title. (Though in my experience, a job title is a comically coveted perceived elevation — a job title often doesn’t correlate to salary.) One of these could well be the reason the employee is leaving or it could be just an excuse the employee is giving you.
The departure presents an opportunity to look deeper and examine the work environment and your role in it. An exit interview might give insight, but we’ve all been taught not to burn bridges, so it is likely censored.
“I think something this whole year has taught us is that it’s not worth it to stay in an unhealthy place,” a friend recently said to me. It remains bizarre to me that we’ve managed to politicize the pandemic, but here we are. No matter which side of the fence you’re sitting on, or even if you’ve taken a seat right on the thing, one thing seems undeniable: collectively we have been through some shit.
I think my friend is onto something though. They were in an unhealthy place themselves, beginning the daunting process of looking for a position with another company. Notice the word daunting. Looking for work is generally an arduous, demoralizing, vulnerable experience and the employee who just left you took that mountain rather than stay at your company.
In my friend’s case, they wound up getting promoted into the position vacated by the very person who was creating the toxic environment. They now have the opportunity to remain with an organization they have invested years with and shape the institutional culture. Not all of us are that lucky.
A coworker of mine asserts that Gen Z will be less tolerant of toxic work environments. While my marketing background has caused me to be leery of generational generalizations, I hope what she says is true. The pandemic will no doubt have an impact on our relationship with work and Gen Z is experiencing it during a crucial time in their development. They are also coming up in a post-industrial world where being treated like a cog in the wheel by an employer is considered undesirable and even unfair.
It was a necessity to work from home, that is if your job was adaptable to it, which presented an experiment we probably wouldn’t have embarked on otherwise. In the aftermath, some companies have begun to question the need for a piece of real estate, but many others are going back to an in-person work environment. A recent Harris Poll found 40% of Americans preferred to work from home full-time, 35% a hybrid of home/office and 25% saying they preferred to work in an office full-time. The situation calls into consideration why an employer needs you at such and such time on the dot, until such and such time and not a minute less, even if your work can be accomplished in a shorter time. Why are we made to feel that our boss needs to see us to know we’re working?
I present this as an example of how work life is changing. Personally, I find myself in the 35% finding hybrid desirable. There was sanity in being able to return to my desk but being able to keep my household and work in balance by being home was a revelation. That is, if I were quick enough to hit the mute button when my dog needed to “talk” to the mailman or fast enough to turn off my camera if my other half wandered out of bed in his preferred sleeping attire: his birthday suit. Ah, lock down was a lot of things, but I can’t say it was dull.
We’re keenly aware that something has changed in the workforce when we go out to eat or to a bar. Things have gotten slower because establishments are having a harder time hiring. We have all heard the accusation that this comes from government assistance which is a convenient excuse but unlikely. If someone is willing to file for unemployment and get 25% of their wages, rather than work for you, then maybe you have some thinking to do. And really, how far does someone get on a $1,200 stimulus check without working? In Orlando, that’s a month’s rent, if you’re lucky.
Service industry jobs are tough work because, well, people suck. After what we’ve been through, we’re thinking twice about working places where we have to deal with rude people.
There are many questions you can ask yourself when an employee leaves. Are you creating or perpetuating a toxic work environment? Is your communication transparent and consistent? Do your employees feel that you have their back? Are you aware of your own moods and how they affect those around you? Are you seeing consistent or sudden turnover? Do employees call out a lot?
Perhaps in your analysis you will find the departing employee is an isolated case but ruminating on it can be healthy for all. The truth is the separation of business and personal life is a myth — we are people, what happens to us is personal.
