Is your team looking at the right reasons behind attrition?

We’d like to tell you a story about what happened at one of our Clients’ organisations. The employee has put in his papers and the manager now meets the employee to ask what happened:

Manager: I see you’ve put in your papers. What happened? Is there something that has been troubling you? Let me know and we can work on a solution to this problem. I know you had some problems with your team leader…is that still troubling you?
Employee: Nothing really wrong with this place. I just felt that my salary has stayed the same since the past 2 years and that’s why I’ve accepted this new offer for a 20% increase. I’m basically leaving for the salary.
Manager: Let me see if there’s something I can do about that. I’ll work with the HR team and see what we can do to keep you back with us.
Employee: Sure, thanks!

A few days later:

Manager: Hello, I have an update for you. I checked with the HR team and we went through the salary ranges of everyone on our team. The good news is that you are at the lower range of the salary so we can increase your salary to match your current offer. Would you be willing to reconsider your resignation?
Employee: Thanks a lot for going through this effort. But I am afraid I have already committed to joining the new company. So I guess I won’t be able to take you up on your offer.
Manager: That’s unfortunate. Well, all the very best. Let’s meet tomorrow and discuss your hand-over and other formalities?
Employee: Sure!… and thanks once again!

Discussions like this happen in offices a great deal. Managers, HRBPs and entire organisations take great pains to understand and work around the employees’ concerns and end up getting frustrated when the employee still leaves. The frustration is caused due to the following:

1. Employee leaving gaps in the skill profile of the team
2. The struggle to get a new employee recruited – the approvals, the process, the onboarding and assimilation into the company, the team and the work culture and processes.
3. The amount of time that Managers need to set aside to take care of all these moving parts and the resultant dilution of focus towards the team members and the work that needs to get done.

Fortunately, we were able to call the employee and speak to him about his reason for leaving. An excerpt from the conversation:

AceNgage: Can you tell me why you’re leaving this company? You’ve spent a great deal of time here and you’ve said so many good things about the company…
Employee: I liked the company. It was just that I had a tough time with my team leader. That guy has no idea what he’s doing or how to run a team. My Manager is a nice person. He tried retaining me, but he does not know what a useless guy the team leader is. Not only me, many other people are also looking out and one or two of them even have offers and will be quitting shortly! In fact, I pity my (ex) manager. He is trying so hard to make this team a good place, but his own team leader is undermining him.
AceNgage: Oh. Can you tell me more about the team leader’s behavior/attitude towards the team that made you take this extreme step?
Employee: Sure, why not? For starters, he has his favorites. He will give them a lot of leeway and also give them the easy assignments. The rest of us have to slog and do all the work and not get any credit. What’s worse, this guy gives all the credit to his favorites. Second, he has no sense of time management. He waits for the last minute and then loads us with work for weekends on end. We again have to slog like slaves. One or two of us had told him to please think through the process and work allotment but were told : Keep quiet I know what I’m doing. My promotion and salary increment has been promised by this guy and he has not kept his promise either. With all this nonsense going on, my health began to suffer and I felt it’s not worth staying back.
Acengage: Did you speak to your Manager about these problems?
Employee: I did! There was a skip level meeting and I opened up about my problems to the Manager. Unfortunately the Team Leader got to know about what happened and gave me a tough time for the next month. I decided not to open up in Skip Level Meetings again. In any case, I was awaiting my new offer letter by then and had decided to leave. This incident turned out to be my “this is it” moment.

At AceNgage, we come across many stories like this as a part of our interview process. Interviewees speak to us more openly because they perceive us not only as an impartial third party, but also as a sounding board that would capture their feedback and pass it on with honesty and anonymity to the people that matter in the company.
Companies can then work on actions that make a tangible difference to their organisation and stop losing more people. In the case above, the company was in a position to stop more attrition by using the Manager Training Program to ensure that the Team Leader was sensitised on the issues that mattered to his team. Potential attrition can also be headed off because HRBPs now meet potential attrites knowing what the problems are – saving them time and ensuring better, deeper and more focused conversations.

We’re happy to surface these ‘disconnects’ with our client organisations.
We not only collate all the feedback but also organise Action Planning Workshops that surface these issues to the decision makers and work with them to deliver real change.
More on that in our next blog.