Why Your Top Performaning Employees Quit

It's like clockwork. Every year a portion of our top 20% of the employees from a performance standpoint decides it's time to move on.

 

You and your co-workers know you would never fire them but here is why you could lose them...

 

It's not that the remaining 80% is unimportant, however, from a productivity, growth, and brainpower perspective, the top 20% of any group is critical. Moreover, these are the employees that are very difficult to replace.

 

Reasons in order...

 

#1 Money: This one was obvious

 

Roughly 46% of the employees that left did so because of money concerns. To be honest, I thought this would be a much higher percentage. I think the most alarming stat to me here is that only 9%  had maxed out their pay potential.

 

Just because a engineer was hired 3 years ago at $70K and currently makes $77K does not mean that is the going rate simply because you built the comp plan that way. If your HR group is not benchmarking what these positions are really making in the world, you better.

 

#2 Unchallenged: At what point does workplace monotony kill someone's drive?
      The Stats: 23% showed this was their #1 reason for leaving.

 

One of the forms was completed by an employee that had the exact same job function for 3 years. He is a great example of this point. This employee was in the 20% tier because he had mastered his position and was viewed by many as someone literally doing the work of 2 people. His performance reviews were flawless. BUT - and here is the killer, he didn't feel that way. He thrived on pressure and having a huge workload was natural to him. Although his manager didn't see it, this guy was bored out of his skull and wanted more. Year after year he exceeded every expectation on his review and he was compensated for it but that was it. In this case, it wasn't a matter of compensation, it was strictly responsibility.

 

#3 Too Challenged: Toss 'em in and see if they swim.
      The Stats: 21% showed this was their #1 reason for leaving.

 

Remember we are only talking about the 20% tier so the people that listed this reason, are not the lazy people of the bunch. They are the ones fed up with bureaucracy, hiring freezes, lack of cooperation, undefined goals, and poor technology. You cannot ask someone to complete 20 tasks and then give them inferior tools and personnel. A lot of employees will struggle through these problems because of their dedication to the company, however, at some point, the fight is no longer sustainable. The employee will either leave, OR , become so unmotivated that they lose their star status and become a normal employee and thus under perform.

 

#4 Dead Company: AKA Death by Boredom
      The Stats: 38 records (21%) showed this was their #1 reason for leaving

 

If the leadership team of your company is constantly drab regardless of the company's growth or the goals achieved, you are in trouble. All employees want money and to be challenged but they don't want to have to self-motivate 100% of the time. For example, I worked for a small company that hadn't created a new product in 10 years. Nothing ever changed and to make matters worse, the executives were all stiffs.

 

Read full list from the dumblittleman