Why Employees Leave?

Isn't this the question that has been haunting the organizational stake holders (e.g. Managers, HR, Leadership etc.) since time immemorial! The Nov-Dec 2024 article by HBR discusses precisely this issue at length. One of the main reasons is - not understanding what motivates the employees and trying to retain them. The other reason is employee working in a role that is a bad fit. There are many other reasons as well which are highlighted in the article, however, I wanted to focus on the two, mentioned above.

Let me provide my own personal example. During my previous assignment, I was working with a group of young and energetic engineers of which 75% of them were fresh out of college :-). During the initial training days, I observed that learning tools and technologies was not at all difficult to most of them. All of them were trained in 2 specific tool set, and they all excelled. However, after that, when they were actually on-boarded into the project to deliver tasks, there were some issues. And these issues were not in terms of applying or using the tools (what to apply) what was learnt, but in terms of "how to apply". Few excelled in the context of working with the same team members and known environment, however, few found that boring. They wanted to apply that which was learnt into an actual project and build on top of it. So there are many other pattern like this which I experienced first hand. So, it becomes very important for the "manager" (I think this word will soon become extinct - will write in my next article) to understand what motivates one and provide them that so that they are aligned.

So, this brings to another important point about - bad fitment (2nd point from the article mentioned in the 1st paragraph above). Again, its not about technology or about the tools, but about how one interacts in a given situation. For an engineer who needs demo a tool or product in front of the customer requires a different "configuration" when compared to an engineer who need to demo it internally (known team) or understand many other features. Now, if the manager does not understand these subtle differences and have them swap their roles, the demo with the customer is going to be a disaster.

Through the model that I have been thinking for over a decade now and formalized it by speaking with many seniors or experts from the field, we can understand an employee better and what motivates them. This is my PhD research. And, I have integrated many indigenous meta-models which identify different aspects of an employee and provide a holistic solution. If I have talk like a techie (engineer) then I am basically representing an employee (human being) as a 3 dimensional vector :-) through which we can reason out.

If I have introduce few sanskrit words, then, Svabhāva and Svadharma, are the ones. Through reflection, one can achieve Svadar?ana.