Letting go

My book-to-be is about the things that make people want to stay in an organisation. I’ll be sharing the working title and subtitle on Linked In soon and will be asking for reactions and comments on these. The ‘big idea’ at the heart of the book? To keep your best people, you have to give them their freedom. But what does that mean in practice? How do you do that well? And how do you manage the risks associated with letting go? If you’ve got a point of view on these questions or you are instantly intrigued/bored by the sound of my book-to-be, please let me know even in just one sentence. Every bit of input at this early stage is helpful, especially the negative feedback!
I’m aiming to speak to at least 20 CEOs as part of my research for the book; might you/your CEO be interested in speaking with me? If you haven’t figured out how to keep your best people, if you’re trying to entice sought-after talent to join you, if you’re feeling caught in a tug of war with employees around work freedoms or are sweating over a solution that keeps everyone happy (when everyone wants different things), then I’d really love to talk. You/your CEO can pick my brains for free during the conversation and I’ll share what I’m hearing (anonymised) from my other conversations. Drop me a line to say ‘yes’ or ‘possibly’ and I’ll follow up with you directly.
What makes people want to stay is one side of the coin; the other is, obviously, what makes them leave. The latter isn’t necessarily the converse of the former. If you’re reading this feeling fairly relaxed about turnover, bear in mind that
90% of your employees are 'open to new job opportunities'. From my research into retention and attrition, here are a few insights into some of the factors that propel people towards the door:
- A lack of work joy. It sounds suspiciously Marie Kondo but it’s true. When your work hours are filled with more toil than joy, you’re more likely to quit. BCG research surveying 11,000 workers found that people who say they enjoy their work are 49% less likely to consider taking a new job than employees who don’t enjoy their work. For advice on how to create more joy in your own work life, read Beth Stallwood’s Workjoy: a toolkit for a better working life or tune into my podcast conversation with her here.
- Return to office (RTO) mandates. These cause
signficant declines in employee job satisfaction and – take note – your high performers are the most likely to leave. Ouch. Additionally,
fully office-based jobs see the highest level of employee turnover at 43.7%, compared to hybrid or flexible roles or fully remote roles). We want our location freedom and we’ll move to get it. Earlier this year I discussed RTO mandates and work flexibility with leading work-futurist Brian Elliott, listen
here.
- Layoffs. Research last year found that announcements of layoffs are significantly more likely to be followed a wave of people heading for the door than either dismissals (for poor performance or misconduct, say) or voluntary turnover.
- Workload and schedule inflexibility, particularly for women. As you may know, alongside my own business I work 2 days a week as Head of Programmes for Encompass Equality, the gender equality experts. Last week the Encompass team released new research into why women leave, looking specifically at how gender influences retention. Whilst women are only marginally more likely to leave than men, the issues of overwork and lack of time flexibility are particularly significant factors for women compared to men. Find the full report here and drop CEO Joy a line if you want to chat further about ways to retain women where you work.
Sometimes organisations are ok with people choosing to leave, even the really talented ones. Long-term-thinking employers will know that some leavers may go on to become valued clients, others may boomerang back to you with newly acquired skills and contacts that you’re keen to deploy. What matters in the short-term is taking the time to understand better why people choose to stay and why they decide to leave, knowing what you can do to influence these decisions and acting early. Don’t be a metaphorical emu and stick your head in the sand*. Speaking of flightless birds, I’m off to watch their airborne counterparts swooping across the marshes here, with a mug of cocoa by the campfire and the sun setting behind me. The grid can have me back tomorrow.
* Contrary to popular belief, emus don’t actually do this.
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