Understanding Why Good Workers Quit - Page 2

For management this means asking yourself: Is our work fun? Challenging? Interesting? Know that when the answers are “yes,” retention gets that much simpler.

The last step to keeping good workers: focus on line managers, said Gayle Lantz, a HR consultant. “The manager is where it all starts” and that also is where it too often ends. Research is plentiful that shows the primary reason workers leave good jobs is conflict with their immediate supervisor. What to do about that? Small steps deliver big results, said Lantz.

“Put managers in peer groups, where they share war stories and tell what is working and what isn’t,” suggests Lantz. The group might meet over lunch once a week, or perhaps it meets in a more formal setting with an executive coach facilitating the session. Either way, this is a fast-track path to improving management skills, said Lantz, who adds that this shoring up of manager’s skills strengthens the foundation that just may produce happier employees.

This sounds hard, you say? You bet. But the alternative is harder.

“You have to understand there is a major talent shortage in IT,” said Kaye who adds that the cost of keeping good workers almost always is cheaper than replacing them. “Too often managers just let good people go without a fight. Stop that. Don’t let good people go easily. They just are too expensive to replace.”