It's been an interesting discussion so far, from the number of quality responses this has generated. While it will be appropriate to acknowledge everyone who has shared his/her thoughts on this query, I would want take to this another level, which suggests "prevention is better than cure."
Several research studies have revealed to managements which believe that most employees are pulled away by better pay. Yet there is enough data from research studies again, which reveals that voluntary turnovers, is caused by something besides money is the root cause. This astounding disconnect between belief and reality allows managers to deny responsibility for correcting and preventing the root causes of employee disengagement. The question that remains unasked in so many exit interviews is not "why are you leaving?" but "why did you first start thinking about leaving?" Asking that question would show that the lessons learned about turnover are just as applicable to disengaged workers. At the very base therefore, it becomes important for us to find out what are the basic hidden reasons why employees leave.
Reasons can be many, but I venture to list out a few.
People do not like task masters - It is said people leave the immediate managers first and then the company
Disappointment - The job per se or workplace was not as expected.
Mismatch between job and person
Lack of Training - Very little or no training, coaching
Lack of proper feedback.
Stagnation - There aren't many advancement/growth opportunities.
Feeling insulted - Employees feel disrespected
Not cared for - Devalued and or unrecognized.
Stress - Employees get stressed due to overwork and work-life imbalance.
No trust in leadership - Lack or loss of trust and confidence in senior leaders.
Image factor - People working for lesser known companies would want to work for branded companies
These are just a few there can be more one can add to. In exit interviews these may get revealed, but in most cases they are even discounted by defensive managements.
While some companies may not even bother about this aspect, there are many companies that still rely on the tangible, easy-to-implement solutions revolving around pay, benefits, and trendy perks even though we know the most powerful solutions revolve around the more challenging intangibles, such as good management and healthy work cultures.
To serve this need, several large companies usually conduct surveys of employees when faced with a crisis or some well known branded companies do it periodically to understand the pulse of their organizations. Typically, such surveys help management of companies understand, where they stand vis-a-vis, the levels of Engagement of Employees. It may also be practice as it is termed as Employee Satisfaction Survey to establish the key factors which influence employees’ opinions of the workplace. Such surveys, in most cases, are run once in three years, indicating a significant interval between two such feedback exercises.
Political, social, economic, emotional and technological factors also influence how employees think about their jobs and employers. In such a dynamic scenario, the big question that is being often asked is, "is it enough to generate workforce insights on a periodical basis?"
When I talk to people especially in campuses and among juniors, I gather most would dream of getting in or wanting to do anything to join very large multi-nationals. When I see job portals, I also see many of them wanting to leave such well known and established multi-nationals, and I often wonder what else are they seeking. I've got no answer to this, nor have I got one convincing answer from any one so far. This cycle goes on and companies keep hiring new people. However, when the dynamics of business around us is also changing pretty rapidly because of competition, our workforce changing their thinking and feeling frequently is no surprise, because everyone Resultant effect of all this is that companies losing existing employees, is becoming more common than before. This is a fact, and a difficult to digest truth, for which HR has to face the brunt.
It's time that companies seriously engage themselves in understanding the psyche of newly joined employees, and gather valid opinions, so that it can help the management and HR professionals in particular in a number of ways to devise effective retention strategies. It can bring clarity to the real reasons why employees leave and provide such insights for key employee segments such as critical-skill employees, high-performers, high-potentials etc. It can provide valuable insights about the experiences of the employees beginning from the selection stage itself. This is an important initial phase in the employee life-cycle, where the employee begins to form initial impressions in dealing with the company. It helps managements understand the prime reasons why the employee chose their company over the others. This can also help in informing the company’s unique Employee Value Proposition, and seriously commit themselves to meeting every word of it by thoughts, deeds and action. It can help develop a deep understanding of disengagement and which aspects of the Employee Value Proposition are not being delivered effectively.
Finally just another factor which is important is that every person seeking employment with the company, be treated like a first class customer. Getting selected or not is another question but the fact that they get treated royally creates an impression that is beyond estimation. This includes even those young people who are seeking first time employment. Doing things like this will help managements understand the prime reasons why the employee chose their company over the others. This can also help in informing the company’s unique Employee Value Proposition, and seriously commit themselves to meeting every word of it by thoughts, deeds and action. It can help develop a deep understanding of disengagement and which aspects of the Employee Value Proposition are not being delivered effectively.
Should these be practiced by companies with well qualified HR trained, experienced, HR professionals I really do not see any reason as to why HR should not be placed on a higher pedestal by professionally managed companies.