SYDNEY, Australia–One person who says she has reviewed the exit interviews of more than 5,000 people said she has uncovered the “real reasons” people are quitting their jobs.
Writing on Atlassian.com, Kim Seeling Smith noted there has been “reams of information written about employee motivation and performance over the last 100 years,” but what her research has found is there are nine key factors that impact these metrics—and “they are much more important than pay and benefits.”
Seeling Smith calls the nine factors “Currencies of Choice,” which she said she discovered “as the result of reverse-engineering during 5,000 exit interviews conducted with an international team of recruiters over the course of 15 years.”
According to Seeling Smith, the nine Currencies of Choice are:
People Want to Work for a Company Whose Values Align with Their Own
“This means a company that has a compelling purpose and values that resonate with the employee’s closely held beliefs,” wrote Seeling Smith. “Let’s talk about purpose first. Doing good while doing well has become more critical to businesses and to employees over the past 10 years. So much so that in August 2019, the Business Roundtable in the U.S., made up of CEOs of America’s top companies, officially changed the Statement of Purpose for a Corporation from one whose sole purpose is shareholder return to one that puts shareholders at the end of the list—behind customers, employees, suppliers, and the communities in which they operate.”
Seeling Smith said when the job market is good, many potential candidates (especially among the Millennial and Gen Z generations) will not apply for a role within a company whose purpose does not inspire them.
“While employees may not have a choice in a downturn, the ones who are not inspired by their company’s purpose may be the first out the door when the economy picks back up,” Seeling Smith wrote. “The same thing applies to values.”
People Want to Work for Someone They Trust and Respect
“That person is you, their direct manager,” stated Seeling Smith. “No pressure! The Gallup organization’s research shows that managers can impact employee engagement by up to 70%.”
People Want to Work With People They Like
“That’s hardly surprising since humans are tribal beings at heart,” Seeling Smith stated. “Even the most introverted among us want to belong to a group of people we like working with—especially since we spend such a significant amount of time interacting with our coworkers.”
People Want to be Appreciated in a Way That’s Appropriate to Them
“Some studies show that praise and appreciation are the top engagement factors among employees,” Seeling Smith said. “Appreciation doesn’t have to include a grand gesture. A simple ‘job well done’ or ‘thank you’ can be enough. But it must be authentic, and it must be meaningful to them. The old adage that managers must praise in public and correct in private is only half right. Some people don’t like public recognition.”
People Want to Have a Voice
“They want to be listened to and heard,” Seeling Smith said. “They want to know that if they tell you something that’s not working, that it will be fixed—or that you’ll give them a good reason why it can’t be. They also want to be able to share ideas about how to make things better.”
They Want to Know What They Need to Do to Succeed and How that Success Will Be Measured
“Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism makes a strong case that having clarity around roles and goals helps teams perform better; it encourages better behavior,” wrote Seeling Smith. “Unfortunately, Gallup reports that less than 50% of employees know what is expected of them. Defining and articulating measurable achievements also gives you, the manager, a specific benchmark to hold people accountable to for great performance, regardless of whether they are sitting next to you in the office, down the hall, or in another state or country.”
People Want to Learn, Grow, and Develop in their Careers
“Not everyone wants to climb the corporate ladder, but they do want to develop and grow in some way through training, additional responsibilities, special projects, or simply having variety in their role,” Seeling Smith stated.
People Want to be Inspired to go the Extra Mile
“People come to work to add value—we need to let them,” said Seeling Smith. “Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us makes a compelling case that people will go the extra mile if they have autonomy, mastery, and a sense of purpose in their role (refer to the first Currency of Choice).”
People Want to Spend Most of Their Day Doing Work They Love
“They want to spend time doing things they’re not only good at but also enjoy doing,” according to Seeling Smith.
Seeling Smith added this is the very definition of someone’s strengths, and research finds that if you have a team that spends most of their time working to their strengths, they are:
- 73% more likely to be highly engaged
- 50% more likely to not leave
- 38% more likely to be highly productive
- 44% more likely to earn high customer satisfaction scores