What is the main reason people leave a job?

As a species, we have such diverse experiences of work. Just the word “work”, is so broad. For some it can be labouring at the bottom of a mine in unbearable temperatures drilling through hard rock for 12 hours a day. For others it may be guiding someone through a mountain trail or asking pointed questions to anxious teenagers in therapy sessions. Many of us go to work every day, some take three steps out of their beds and work from home, others walk to a taxi then a bus and travel for 2 hours in the cold to get there. Its all over the show. ?

Omnicor Exit Surveys

From the services we provide at Omnicor, we encounter many people in all different types of work. However, our sample definitely leans white collar. One of our services is to track Exits – the surveys people complete when they have given notice at a company.

We have thousands of data points on this. Outside of this, we did a recent (small) ?LinkedIn poll where we asked people about the negative reasons for leaving a job (there are often positive reasons at play, a pull rather than a push). This is what we found:

Its clear, most people leave jobs because of other people!

Toxic work culture came up as number one and Poor Leadership as number two. These probably overlap.

Our own research has indicated that about 25% of people will leave a job explicitly because of their manager.

These are avoidable losses.

A good worker leaving a role where they are treated poorly is a lose-lose. While disgruntlement is common, many people leave when they like their manager, like the company and like the culture, but a just want a new role.

Some recent research we did on a company showed that 30% of people who left would have stayed if they could have changed roles.

People become bored and seek out new opportunities to master new skills. They leave to learn new things, and grow, elsewhere. But sure, a substantial proportion might leave to get away from a manager or team culture they dislike.

What about pay?

We tend to think of it as a key reason. It might be, but it is rarely cited as the?reason (only 8% in our mini-survey). There is little doubt that most people seek more money when they do leave, but that is a spin-off rather than the main driver.

The lesson,

I think, is that retention doesn’t have to cost lots of money. The key parts of it are actually free.

• Treat people well, create a benevolent culture where people experience psychological safety.
• Acknowledge good work, help people experience purpose by showing how their role serves the company’s greater good.
• Teach managers to be respectful, to never shout and humiliate people.
• Create an atmosphere of collaboration where every voice counts, and where hierarchy and status are unwelcome.
• Let work be a place that people want to be instead of a daily trudge that dehumanises.

And here’s the thing, if you do that, if people love their jobs, you will exponentially get back beyond what you invest. Because people will stay in their jobs, they will work hard, they will feel happy, and they will strive to be productive.