Employers cannot stem the exodus of employees leaving the workplace as they do not know why they are leaving. You must know the cause to resolve the problem. There is a massive gap between what employers think employees want and what employees want from their employer.

Employers are still focused on the transactional factors such as pay and benefits. Whilst these are still important, employees are looking for relational factors such as flexibility, connection, and a sense of purpose.

It is also an imperative to address the situation as the best and brightest of your talent now has a smorgasbord of employers to choose from. They are in the driving seat now that remote working has been a success and employees have proved that they can be just as productive, if not more so, working from home. Their choice of employer is no longer geographical constrained. They can literally work for an employer in any part of the globe. They are leaving because they can, and they expect more.

The war for talent is back on.

The top ten reasons employees are leaving based on research from McKinsey. The result of the research is based on top three rankings from respondents to the McKinsey survey who left a job between December 2020 and December 2021 without another job offer in hand. These are the employees who had just had enough.

This week we look at the second set of 5 reasons. This is my take on each of the reasons and what I believe you can do about it.

6.   Inadequate total compensation package

Now we get to number 6 on the list that employers think is number 1. Many employers still believe if they write a big pay cheque for salaries, they will attract and retain the talent they need. Whilst a good compensation package is a key consideration for employees, it is not in the top five of the reasons they have left an organisation.

Organisations must determine what their employees, and potential employees, want from compensation packages. There is no one-size-fits-all solution as it depends on the context. Is this organisation one primarily comprised of Gen Y and Gen Z or is it one full of baby-boomers? Clearly the needs of these different generations will be different. The baby-boomers are not likely to want on-site childcare as a priority unless they are caring for grandchildren. This maybe a priority provision within a package for the younger generations.

Organisations must find out what benefits their employees need to achieve a work-life balance. What if you subsidised household cleaning services, garden maintenance, and laundry services instead of the gym subscription? Organisations must reach out and ask? This is a time to assess the standard compensation (transactional) against other benefits (relational) that employees are looking for and find the right balance.

Whilst there are many pros and cons regarding pay-transparency, it is getting a lot of airplays now. If employees find out that new hires for similar roles are getting offered higher salaries or better packages to lure them into the organisation, they may demand a pay rise which could inadvertently financially drain the organisation if this was not anticipated. On the other hand, organisations such as Buffer have been publishing employee salaries online since 2013 to ensure fairness including gender parity. What worked in Buffer’s favour was that in the month after the salaries were published, Buffer had 2,886 job applications, more than doubling the 1,263 it received in the 30 days prior to the announcement. In part this was because salaries at Buffer were substantial but also an organisation openly promoting its core value of transparency and operating in a fair and equitable manner. Buffer also has trust baked into the process by making its salary formula totally transparent, so everyone knows that they are being paid fairly based on factors like their level of experience.

Whilst salary and benefits package transparency have the potential to be strong culture-builders and drivers of employee engagement, organisations must evaluate whether it would be right for them.

7.    Lack of workplace flexibility

McKinsey also determined that latent workers (currently unemployed) and those in non-traditional work (part-time or gig work) roles wanted meaningful work and workplace flexibility as the top two reasons to return to traditional employment.

A large number of employees, primarily comprised of knowledge workers, have had over two years of flexibility since forced to work from home at the start of March 2020. Despite the disruption, many found that remote work gave them more flexibility regarding planning their personal life around their professional life as opposed to the opposite. They could plan their working hours around other personal activities such as childcare and school pick-ups, shopping, exercise, and medical appointments.

Employers who believe that work will return to how it was before March 2020 are sadly mistaken. There is no going back.

Employees are making it loud and clear that they want continued flexibility to work where they want, when they want and how they want. Back in November 2021, I wrote an article about the employee value proposition and the need for both flexibility and autonomy for employees.

“Flexibility could be interpreted by many organisations as providing the option to work remotely 2 days a week and specify which days they are.

This is not what employees are asking for. They are seeking flexibility that is driven by their autonomy to choose how best to use it.

Dictating conditions of work and labelling them as flexibility is a mandate in sheep’s clothing. Mandates will drive employees away from your organisation. Organisations should not be leading with policies but principles to guide employees.”

Many organisations believe they are providing flexibility in the following ways.

·       Attend the office 2 days a week every week that are stated

·       Attend the office 2 days a week every week which you can chose

·       Attend the office on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday every week

·       Attend the office or work from home based on your manager’s discretion

·       Work fully in the office or fully remote

These are all mandates which do not provide employees the autonomy to choose what works best for them. It is not true flexibility. If an organisation demands I attend the office 2 days a week, I will ask, “Why?” If there is no justifiable reason why I would spend two hours commuting to be in the office, then there is no substance to the request.

“When there is both high flexibility and high autonomy, employees can work when they want, how they want, and where they want. There will be principles by which the leader, the team, and the team members operate. When the leader and the team decide that a face-to-face co-located meeting is the optimal way to achieve desired outcomes, they will decide where and when that co-location happens that meets the needs of most of the team. It is not dictated – it is a democratic decision, that has the needs of the team and the wider organisation at its core.”

8.   Unreliable and unsupportive people at work

The existence of unreliable and unsupportive people at work is a cultural issue and one that needs to be remedied through good leadership.

Unreliable employees may be so because they are not motivated by the work they are given. This negativity develops into a habit of not delivering what is expected. The employee may be having issues outside of the workplace which is affecting their ability to meet expectations.

Employees may be unsupportive of their colleagues if they feel threatened or are concerned about losing their job. They may keep knowledge to themselves to appear indispensable. An unsupportive boss is one who subtly fails to advocate for the employee. They shut down ideas without explanation, undermine, refuse to provide feedback, and prevent career progression.

Leaders must firstly find out why there are unreliable and unsupportive people at work. Is it the work environment? Is it caused by external factors? Is it related to one area of the organisation or one geographical location? Leaders should look for indicators and trends and then act to remove the causes wherever possible.

Leaders must work to create a work environment that motivates, in which there is a shared sense of purpose and employees feel valued. The tools, support, and resources, needed by employees should be available. Leaders must be clear on their expectations and ensure that the employee understands those expectations. Leaders should enable to the team to create a team charter that outlines employees’ expectations of each other in terms of their values, beliefs, and behaviours. An environment of psychological safety must be cultivated so that employees feel safe to call each other out on behaviours that do not align with the charter without fear of reprisal. Leaders must model the desired values, beliefs, and behaviours.

Leaders are unsupportive if they micromanage. They are not supporting employee development, learning and growth. They are supportive when they empower, provide autonomy, and lead with trust.

If you want people to change, you must inspire trust from them. You must offer honest and respectful feedback with compassion it you want trust from them. You must lead with empathy. Do not be ambiguous but clear and direct. As Brené Brown said, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.”

When behaviours are identified that are not desired behaviours then leaders must follow through and act. Bad behaviours will continue and flourish if idle threats are made. After doing everything you can to eradicate bad behaviour, ensuring your expectations are clear and everyone understand the consequences of bad behavior, leaders must reach out to the continuing perpetrators. It could be final warning or a departure from the organisation.

9.   Unsafe workplace environment

The McKinsey research does not elaborate on what the employees surveyed meant regarding an “unsafe workplace environment.” So, it is left to interpretation.

There are two types of safe environment – physical and mental. The work environment should pose no risk to the health of employees through the existence of physical hazards. Leaders must create a safety culture in which safety is not only maintained but one in which there is a constant drive to improve safety. Everyone should receive regular training regarding workplace safety. Psychological safety and trust enable employees to speak out about safety hazards without fear of negative repercussions. Physically unsafe work environments can be a direct result of employer negligence.

The other safety is mental safety and the risk from bullying and harassment. Workplace bullying is repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed at an employee or group of employees that creates a risk to health and safety. Workplace bullying can have an impact on an individual’s health and affect their ability to do their job. It can also contribute to loss of productivity, staff turnover, absenteeism, low morale, and financial costs.

Organisational leadership must make it clear that there is no place for bullying and harassment in the workplace. There must be a zero-tolerance policy. Leaders must identify, prevent, and respond. They must model the organisations values and standards for workplace behavior. Employees must be encouraged to report instances of bullying and once again and environment of trust and psychological safety enables this. Employees must also know, from past incidents, that action will be taken when bullying is reported. They must have confidence in the process.

10.                 Non-inclusive, unwelcoming, and disconnected community

There are many non-inclusive workplace behaviours that will make employees want to leave their employer. It could include use of words, humour, gestures, other acts, or omissions that cause an employee offence. Discrimination, derision and blaming drive non-inclusion. There are also less obvious behaviours with the same outcomes including inattentive listening, making assumptions before checking the facts, command and control supervision, more criticism than praise, and actively creating division not cohesion. All these behaviours are unwelcoming.

Many employers think that by having a diverse workplace filled with various generations, genders, ethnicities, religions, and backgrounds, that this means it is an inclusive workplace, but diversity and conclusion are not the same thing. I love the quote from Verna Myers, “Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance.”

Leader must create an environment that is safe and welcoming. An environment of psychological safety where everyone feels safe to ask questions, challenge, speak up, raise concerns etc. without any fear of repercussion or reprisal. Leaders must create and environment in which everyone feels heard, respected, and valued.

Inclusivity must be an integral part of the organisations and its teams core values and beliefs. Provide everyone with access to resources, training, and education regarding inclusion. Again, leaders right from the top of the organisation down, need to model inclusive behaviours. Other actions can include using inclusive language, frequent check-ins to build trust and allow employees to raise any issues or concerns they may have about how they are being treated, creating safe spaces such as prayer or mediation spaces. Some organisations have established Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) which are employee-led initiatives to include interest-based groups in search of a sense of community and inclusiveness. Diversity councils are another initiative to help monitor and accelerate the organisations diversity and inclusion efforts.

Addressing inclusion can also help created connected communities. One impact the pandemic has had is to reduce cross-function / cross team connection and collaboration.

In September 2021, Microsoft released the results of research they had conducted on the effects remote working had on work patterns. They analysed data describing the work patterns of Microsoft employees both before and after Microsoft’s firm-wide work from home mandate in March 2020.

They found that remote work caused the formal business groups and informal communities to become less interconnected and more siloed. Time spent on cross-team collaboration decreased and individual groups became more intra-connected. This means that organisations and leader must make intentional efforts to connect functions, locations, departments, and encourage knowledge sharing before productivity and innovation are impacted. They must build communities that breakdown the silos and promote collaboration.

Conclusion

Employers must focus on the right things to retain talent. The exodus will not be stemmed with band-aid solutions. A focus on the transaction aspects or the relational aspects will not fix it. Employers must focus on both.