
Why people leave companies - prostoalex
http://qz.com/287876/this-is-why-people-leave-your-company/
======
greenyoda
_" 1\. People who love their job and the company will work all the time
anyway. If you’ve hired good fits, you’ll see this happen."_

People will "work all the time" only if they love their job and the company
more than their significant others, their friends, their children, their
health, etc.

If companies consider a "good fit" someone who is willing to give up their
personal life for the company, it's not surprising that it's hard for them to
find people to hire.

 _" 2\. People do better work when they have lives of their own..."_

This seems to contradict item #1: if you work all the time, how can you have a
life of your own?

One more thing: The author of this article is an HR person, so the only thing
she knows about why employees leave is probably based on what the employees
choose to divulge during their exit interviews. Employees are generally not
going to tell HR that "I'm leaving because my boss is an asshole", since that
would be burning bridges - word could get back to the boss, and the employee
would never get a decent reference from them. A smart employee would realize
that they have nothing to gain by telling HR their real reasons for leaving,
so they'd say something generic and inoffensive like "I'm leaving to pursue
other opportunities".

~~~
julenx
I understand #1 more along the lines of "people will work _anytime_ ", be it
Tuesday 2am or a sunny Sunday morning, as opposed to _all the time_ , which
literally means you never stop working.

------
guhcampos
The counteroffer argument is weak and simply not true. And it led me to think
that this Guthrie guy seems to believe that the only way of people leaving a
job is looking for another one.

This is particularly not true inside the tech industry: good employees are
constantly harassed by other companies. They will offer higher wages, shorter
hours and tons of other benefits to make a wanted engineer turn. Sometimes
those offers are hard to turn down, even if you are pretty happy with your
job.

What I've seen happen to me and friends is a simple matter of chosing to be
honest or not. Last time it happened to me I sat down with my boss and told
him:

\- Boss, these guys want me pretty bad, they have been harassing me for months
now and I turned down every offer. Problem is, they gave me this X offer now
and, taking into account that I'm getting married next year, the extra money
would be handy, this is getting hard to say no.

He gave me a counteroffer and we lived happily ever after.

Bottomline: sometimes the employee does not really want to leave, but it's a
tough market out there. If you want to keep your engineers (and other
employees as well) you simply have to be a better workplace than the others.
This includes money, benefits, hours, bureaucracy, stress levels and every
other possible aspect that your employee might take into account.

It's not really that different than building a product which is better than
your competitor. Problem is that H&R and Hiring guys want so bad to make a
case for themselves that they try those magic and golden rules that simply
won't work.

You are dealing with people, be nice to them and they will be nice to you in
return. If they don't, you don't want them in your ranks anyway.

~~~
bbcbasic
The problem is that on average, giving every employee what they want in terms
of salary, work allocation etc. is going to be hard or impossible. So most
companies don't and usually the squeaky wheel (or the wheel that is
threatening to leave) will get the grease. It is not fair but then there isn't
a totally fair way to deal with this.

There is no fair way to pay people. It is a supply / demand and negotiated
marketplace. There is no such thing as I am work $100k/year because I did XYZ
and know ABC. I mean that may be true this second, but it is as only as true
as the most up to date data. And is not true in any absolute sense.

~~~
guhcampos
It's essentially a min-max problem. Optimization is achievable, but hard work.

It demands honesty from both parties and any employee must understand exactly
what you said: companies can't give all the employees want. You have to know
your own value and make yourself valuable to the company first, then ask for
recognition.

~~~
bbcbasic
That doesn't always work.

The Pink Floyd song put's it well "When you ask for a pay rise it's no
surprise they giving none away".

What does work for getting a pay rise is:

1\. If you are genuinely paid less than market then prove it by getting an
offer from another company.

2\. The other option is to get promoted into a new role. As a developer that
usually means becoming a manager - so even if you could add 10* more value as
say an "architect" it may be more profitable personally to become a manager.

There may be other more 'ruthless' ways too. I am not ruthless enough to know
about them!

But all in all value and pay are roughly correlated but increasing one doesn't
necessarily increase the other.

------
maerF0x0
The note about wages is true except in the case that your employee can make
more elsewhere. Recognition is important to good employees, and failing to
recognize their value is insulting.

I have worked at places where latter hires made more than former hires (same
equity), this disgruntled the former hires and there was a loss of experienced
people. Simply bumping people up to the company average could have retained
their better employees.

~~~
monk_e_boy
I should prob make an anonymous account, but whatever. One of our sales people
left to get a job in a charity shop. The wages and hours were better.

You gotta laugh. Or cry. I forget which.

------
Fede_V
I didn't like this article at all. First - it states that putting insane
pressure on people to work long hours is counter productive - and mandating
week-end work leads to burn out.

The very next sentence then immediately says this:

"People who love their job and the company will work all the time anyway. If
you’ve hired good fits, you’ll see this happen."

Uhh.. so you want to replace mandatory week-end over time, with an informal
criteria where good fits work all the time anyway - thus if you don't work on
the week-ends (of your own """choice""") you confirm you aren't a good fit?

Now, there's nothing wrong with working on week-ends when there's a deadline
or an important milestone, but substituting explicit expectations with
implicit ones is flat out horrendous and it means that you have to constantly
read between the lines to find out exactly what you have to do.

~~~
lem72
I didn't really read it that way. I read it more like treat people with
respect, don't force them to create work that is a nice or should when they
should be relaxing... but people who love their job will be happy to go the
extra mile, work weekends, etc when there are Must or Mission Critical things
that need to get done.

~~~
Fede_V
Sure - and I agree with all that. The issue comes with the circularity of the
reasoning:

\- People who are a good cultural fit don't mind working all the time

Therefore:

If someone minds working on week-ends - then they weren't a great cultural
fit. It's almost Calvinist in its logic.

As you said, there's absolutely no problem working on week-ends when it's
needed, or getting really caught up in an exciting new tech and spending
evenings getting it up and running. However - when this become (implicitly)
expected as a marker of good cultural fit, you've basically placed it as a
burden for everyone.

------
silverpikezero
It sounded good until I got to #2. This is utterly false. I would go so far as
to say canonically-untrue: the only reason any employee leaves is because of
their boss.

A good manager will keep an employee engaged, challenged, and happy. In fact
managers can achieve this even if the company itself is not engaged,
challenging, and a happy place. Good managers can also shield employees from
an array of terrible dysfunction at the company level. All good managers I've
ever had have this skill. A bad manager will not only expose company
dysfunction, but magnify it, making the employee's job more difficult than if
the employee has no manager at all. I've had the latter several times, and
it's soul-draining.

The rest of the article reads like a novice's take on the SF startup scene,
which I happen to loathe anyways. One funny example is the #7 HR comment,
which exposes a pretty big misunderstanding about HR. HR serves no useful
purpose to the employee; it exists to shield the company from problems,
nothing more. Improving HR will have no meaningful impact on employee
retention.

<Edited for tone.>

~~~
eropple
I've left jobs because of my boss. I've also left jobs because of completely
unrelated reasons. My boss at TripAdvisor was a fantastic guy who I still hold
in the highest regard and I'd go work for again if it made sense. But I was
offered an opportunity simply not available at that job because it didn't
exist and didn't matter to the company.

I've also been privileged to work with HR people for whom the adage "never
trust them" was completely false, because they were good _people_ who happened
to work in HR. So there's that, too. They were excellent sources of advice and
problem-solving help when needed, and I consider at least one of them a friend
even now that I no longer work for the company.

So it sounds to me like you're projecting, and kind of being rude about it?

~~~
bronbron
Eh, he's not wrong (even if he's being a Walter about it).

HR is not a union for employees. HR is there to protect the company: It just
turns out that the company's theoretical (keyword there) interests and the
employee's interests align frequently (e.g. keeping the workplace free of
discrimination, keeping employee morale up).

~~~
eropple
The point is, when you don't approach every interaction in an adversarial
manner, you're remarkably more likely to not have them be your adversaries.

------
bbcbasic
It is very start-up-focused and US focused.

I have never worked at a company in 13 years that has done a pivot. There are
companies out their doing the boring (but still profitable) stuff y'know!

Also I have never worked at a company that expects me to do routine unpaid
overtime over the contracted hours. But I have worked in UK/Australia with
different culture. UK is best 25 days annual leave + public holidays, and
often no expectation to work more than the hours you agreed when you signed up
(which is fair enough!).

Ahem yet people leave their cushy programming jobs in the UK!

Main reasons for me are substandard coding practices, low pay, not interesting
enough work, major life changes (e.g. moving to another country), company
going downhill.

Pro tip: Don't tell the potential employer or recruiter your current salary.
Or if you do lie and add 20-30%.

~~~
andrewingram
FYI. Every company I've worked for in London (to date, 4), has given me the
minimum allowed holiday: 20 days + 8 public holidays.

~~~
bbcbasic
London is a different beast entirely!

------
vinceguidry
I was nodding my head until I read the second section on advice on how not to
lose people. It seemed like the most unactionable crap I've ever heard outside
of the self-help industry.

Something that is actionable that can help retain employees is encouraging
candor and honest communication about office politics on the part of direct
supervisors. It kept me from jumping ship and I consider myself underpaid.
Knowing that at least one person at the company had my best interests at heart
kept me from making a decision that would have hurt everybody but me.

~~~
aeonsky
I know that point of view too - if you leave now, we would have to look very
hard for a long time to replace you. We have many projects and you're the only
one that knows X, however, we don't have the cash to offer you a raise, here
are some more options for $0.001 each.

However, I usually found the minute you are inconvenient, you will be let go.
Communication is important, but remember that businesses ALWAYS has their best
interest in mind. Sometimes it is necessary to make tough decisions (bad for
company, good for you - because you feel selfish) and quit a unwinnable
situation.

~~~
WalterBright
I've been both an employee and an employer, and things are hardly so one-
sided. For example, an engineer friend of mine works for a mega corp. He has
cancer, and has been undergoing various treatments for years. The corp has
bent over backward to be accommodating for his needs, such as time off for
treatments, schedule adjustments, etc. For example, he's got chemobrain and
they've found productive work he can do.

The corp has my respect and gratitude for this.

~~~
aeonsky
I believe it is because cancer patients are a protected class under ADA, I may
be wrong.

------
7Figures2Commas
> One big difference is that the company didn’t approach recruiting from a
> purely skills-based perspective. “Honestly, we placed a high price on
> ‘hilarious’ and hired wonderful people, I think partially because we were
> willing to work with people who were awesome culture fits even if they had a
> steep learning curve ahead of them.”

I don't like the reference to "culture fit" since this is so nebulous and
often abused, but the comment about skills-based hiring is really important
for startups.

Lack of a willingness to develop employees is one of the big reasons startups
complain about a "talent shortage." Far too many companies focus on people who
can do X, Y and Z today because they've been doing those things for _n_ years,
and they completely filter out smart, motivated people who, if given an
opportunity and a good environment, could be developed into fantastic
employees.

This has an underestimated impact on employee retention. Unless your company
is a rocket ship, the person you hire on a perfect skills fit may start to
feel like he or she is stagnating relatively quickly.

Growth is crucial to employee satisfaction and companies should consider the
saying "a man's reach should exceed his grasp" when filling positions. Hire
intelligent, conscientious people who have to grow to fit a role and chances
are they'll be far more engaged and loyal than the employees who don't have to
grow to do the job.

~~~
Kalium
The catch, I suspect, lies in knowing how much runway you have to develop
someone. The person needs a month to learn a language and framework? Sure,
that's workable. Needs a year? Maybe not.

~~~
jschwartzi
The real question is whether that person can produce usable work output while
they're learning. The framework that takes a year to learn because it's
composed of 12 parts that would each take a month to master is still
equivalent to the other framework that takes a month to master, because your
employee can be producing useful work output within a month either way. If
your 12-part framework is useless until fully mastered, then you should
probably pick a different framework.

------
Mithaldu
I really like the note about few people leaving because of their bosses. My
experiences with all companies, excepting one, has been that the person i
reported to was hard-working, intelligent, well-meaning, skilled and all-
around a great person; who was however constrained by decisions and outright
mistakes of people above them, who sometimes manage to be so separated from
the humans in their companies that i struggled to still consider them humans
at all. (I'm talking outright abuse of people inside AND outside the company,
as well as rampant and violent irrationality.)

~~~
x0rg
Constraints are often linked to a lack of courage. People prefer to defend
themselves more than what they do. They prefer to complain more than actually
solve problems..

~~~
Mithaldu
By constraints i mean managers being told "you can leave if you like" to their
faces when addressing things that were actively, massively and negatively
affecting the company's bottom-line and well-being.

------
NateDad
Compensation compensation compensation. Companies _never_ value their current
employees high enough. The guy who's been here for 3 years? His institutional
knowledge is almost priceless. And yet, changes are, he can get a 15% pay bump
by taking a new job. You should be paying him 15% above market and be happy
about it. Maybe this is just the Boston area, but I have never left a job
without making 15-20% more at the new job, and I'm no rock star.

And yes, don't expect people with lives to work crazy hours, but usually we
just self select ourselves out of those jobs, because they're a bad fit. I
suppose if you go from single to married and/or having kids, you might be
stuck.

The only one I really agree with is loss of confidence, but even then, if I'm
paid well, I'll probably be too lazy to go somewhere else, unless I start
thinking working at the company is actually detrimental to my resume (which
has happened to me once)

~~~
jrs235
I think the problem is companies hire for say a web developer II position and
assume after hiring they can stick to COLA (inflation) raises. Except, after
three years truthfully they are now a web developer III which is a promotion
and 10 to 15% increase. Since they have only been doing COLA raises (2 to 3%)
it catches them and there budget by surprise. Just give 5% every year and
don't worry about the cognitive dissonance you'd (the mangers) face. (I think
managers have cd because they have rationalize why all of a sudden someone
should be compensated 10% more when nothing much changed between yesterday and
today. They need to see, think, and spread out the increase over a large
period of time. Knowledge of existin outg systems doesn't happen in a day. Pay
them more as they learn and know more.)

------
grandalf
I am skeptical that there really are good HR people out there who are capable
of being effective in a startup environment. I think that's why startups so
often don't hire any until it's too late.

~~~
te_chris
Maybe not traditional HR people, but surely former startup people who were
responsible for culture could be hired into head of HR roles. That's what I'd
try for anyway.

~~~
grandalf
Definitely. Culture is not trivial to get right, and the period of rapid
growth when companies often mishire HR people is exactly when it is most
needed.

I could see hiring a low level HR person in more of a clerical role and then
hiring a community builder or evangelist or whatever to focus on culture.

------
icehawk219
I largely agree with most of the points in this article but personally there's
one thing that drives me up the wall that every company I've worked at has
gotten wrong.

The author hints at "mandatory fun" with regards to company activities. I tend
to be pretty strongly introverted and don't enjoy social outings very much.
Yet every job I've been at when there's a company happy hour, a group going
for drinks, a team lunch, or a holiday party and I don't want to go I find
myself hounded for it. Made fun of for not wanting to "have fun" or ridiculed
about not wanting to be "part of the team". To the point that I'll often just
call out on the day of the event so I don't have to put up with it.

I guess I missed the part where me having fun by going home and sitting in
front of my fireplace reading my new Henry Ford biography is against the
rules. And lets not get started on how tired I am of being made fun of for not
liking to drink alcohol. Team building activities and the such are fine, and I
totally get why they exist and why most people enjoy them, but I genuinely
don't have fun in most social settings. And I have even less when it's forced
upon me or people go out of their way to try to force me into them.

------
Cakez0r
The article mentions trusting HR with the company's deepest, darkest
secrets... Company secrets are probably one of the biggest factors of my work
satisfaction.

If there are hush-hush meetings and rumors circulating, that's a huge red
flag. Run your business transparently. You never know which of your employees
might have a solution to whatever problem the business is facing.

------
11thEarlOfMar
One of the mantras of all companies, especially tech, is that you've got to be
always hiring. That means always out looking for great people who are also a
cultural fit and bringing them in regardless of whether there is an open
position. This is difficult for founders since their focus is typically on
building the product, no matter what.

I speculate that there is a type of HR role that could fill this need, but not
be a full-time payroll person for the startup companies they serve. Perhaps a
type of retained recruiter but who has a much closer relationship to the start
up than the current 'hunter' type that Founders never meet in person. They'd
have a good working relationship with the founder and employees, actually
understand the culture and the tech, and then only bring people in who they
felt were truly a fit.

Do such types exist? If not, would founders find them valuable? How would you
align their interest with the startup so they genuinely brought in candidates
they felt were a fit?

~~~
bronbron
> That means always out looking for great people who are also a cultural fit
> and bringing them in regardless of whether there is an open position.

> I speculate that there is a type of HR role that could fill this need

We have this at my company (not going to name, just to remain semi-anonymous).
There's a whole group dedicated just to finding people who seem like good fits
for the company. They're employees the same as any engineer would be.

I don't think it's _that_ uncommon at bigger (i.e. > 100 employees) companies.

------
bkurtz13
This article could be a lot better if it were more general and less focused on
"startups"...

------
agounaris
I strongly disagree with the boss section. People leave bad bosses not bad
companies.

She also assumes that a manager/boss is definitely doing a good job and
therefore an employee leaving is a hiring problem. Not really... it's
interesting if this is a common logic among HR

------
shRaj9fEc8Vith
i quit because after less than a year, the job is very repetitive. It's not
very challenging, plus i got offered 60% raise somewhere else with some new
cool stuff i want to learn -> insta-quit.

The project manager of mine was a terrible person. He made testers(female)
cried in the toilet all the time. Think about it!!!

------
icedchai
The reason I leave is almost always the same: boredom and lack of actual
interesting, challenging work.

