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Hello Reader,

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Why do employees leave? What goes behind the decision to resign a known job, abandon the familiar, and head into unfamiliar territory? Do employees quit organizations or bosses, or both? The phenomenon of the Great Resignation has been on everyone's mind recently. It is as if collectively we decided that we are unhappy with our lot and decided to search for greater opportunities and greener pastures.

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I have spoken to many clients of late who are at crossroads and reassessing what their future looks like in a post-pandemic, hybrid workplace. Employee turnover and personnel movement is a regular part of any organization. Not all these movements are driven by the pandemic and the evolving future of work. Some of them could be due to changes in personal life - like the arrival of a baby, or illness in the family. Others could be due to a desire to grow, in a direction other than what the organization envisions. Some of them are even desirable - like a promotion or secondment.

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Regardless of the motivations behind an employee's decision to quit, many times organizations are caught blind-sided by these changes. Employee turnover is disruptive and expensive. It is estimated that the cost of rehiring, training and replacing a valuable employee is more than the annual salary of the employee who quit. Not to mention the intangible cost of low morale amongst the remaining team members. And yet, there are very few organizations that have a definitive and creative employee retention strategy.

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Companies spend a lot of money conducting surveys and exit interviews to understand what went wrong. Some progressive organizations rely on "stay interviews" to understand what is actually going right. What inspires employees to stay motivated and engaged? What compels them to continue to do their best work for an organization? And how do we increase and emulate those behaviors?

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One last thought on employee turnover: if someone has decided to leave - for personal reasons or for a better opportunity or because they no longer see themselves at your organization - what should be the organization's response? Should we simply let them serve out their notice period, hoping to minimize the disruption to the rest of the team? Or is this an opportunity to build a better relationship with the employee? Should we be facilitating their decision by enabling them to grow, even if it means outside the organization? Let us know in your comments on our social media channels.

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Here's our bi-weekly reading list:

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​What makes staff want to leave their jobs? Ask them - Source: Financial Times

Quick Take: "While stay interviews are not new, they are far less familiar than exit interviews, which in terms of retention are too late and not especially insightful. By contrast, stay interviews could head off an employee’s desire to leave, as well as allowing the company time to make a counter-offer. They also encourage managers to understand the worker, their values and career aspirations."

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​Stay interviews: how to prevent internal talent from flying the coop - Source: HR Magazine

Quick Take: "It’s a really simple format to anchor back to why they joined, firm up what motivates them and pin down what the business can do to retain them. One of their key findings is that many people are looking for career progression much earlier than before. Some want structures and opportunities to move up as early on as three months in. These companies are working hard to engage with and evolve their employees fast."

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​What You Should Do If a Valuable Employee Decides to Quit - Source: Entrepreneur

Quick Take: "Quitting is always stressful. You can't know what a future will hold. Of their own free will, a person, if everything is in order, usually does not want new troubles. They want to stay in their comfort zone (if you have created one for them). Therefore, most likely, there are grave reasons that pushed them to come to this decision. It is always worthwhile: Maybe you will find something to improve within your company and try to help. Experience tells us that there are practically no unsolvable situations."

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​Hire Slow, Fire Fast And Give People $5,000 To Leave - Source: The Forbes

Quick Take - "There’s nothing worse for a job applicant and hiring manager to realize within a month or so of starting a new job that it's not going to work out. When a supervisor realizes that the newly hired employee is not what he purported to be, lacks the skills he boasted about, and has a bad attitude which is ruining the morale of the team—you need to act with ruthless efficiency and fire the person."

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What do you think of the new look of The EQrated? Please let me know at stef@yourturnsolutions.com. Please feel free to share this newsletter with people you know who might find value in it. They can also subscribe to the EQrated by clicking the button below.

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Ciao,

Stef