Attrition, the dreaded word! The cancer of HR, the hemorrhage of companies.
We’ve all heard about it, witnessed it, done it (oops, well of course) and seen the desperate measures that companies take to fight it: From the high cost ones (Share option programs, bonuses, fancy offices with ping pong tables, company trip to Barcelona ), to the weirdest ones, usually rendered acceptable because they’re labeled as “Company culture” which makes everything ok (Ice cream on Friday - yeah sure, I’ll stay in my job JUST for that!).
I’ve seen bootstrapped startups, where employees share desks, sit amongst cardboard boxes and don’t get dental insurance, where attrition is nil. I’ve seen fat corporations where yoga classes, nursing rooms and working from home type policies seem to have no impact and talent continues bleeding out inexplicably.
Now, I am no HR expert, but after 43 years of experience, 20 of which at work, I know a thing or two about employees and human beings. I think that when it comes to attrition management, we’ve completely lost sight of what really matters: People and their motivations.
In marketing, we learn that consumers (AKA: People) make decisions with the right side of their brain, the emotional side, while using the left side to validate this decisions with facts and cognitive messaging. Fact-based thinking is an afterthought, it’s not leading, most of the time. Emotions are leading.
How could we possibly think that the way a consumer thinks is different from the way an employee thinks? They’re all the same people.
Choosing a brand, working for a company, joining a political party or a religious organisation… these decisions are all about relationships and the emotional benefit one gets from it. Working is a relationship that evolves and gets re assessed every day.
So let’s move the question from “Why do employees leave their company?” to “Why do people leave their partner?” to try and explore the right side of the brain and the REAL reason people stay or leave.
Churn: What does not work
Location - NOPE!
So let’s say you’ve met the love of your life. He’s a friend of friends, you spend time together at gatherings and eventually start doing stuff together on a one to one basis and fall madly in love. Only issue, he lives in North London while you’re a South London person, the commuting between your 2 apartments is 1 hour. Are you going to break up with your love because you don’t like taking the subway? (please say No!)
Opposite case scenario: You meet someone in the same circumstances as above, and, icing on the cake, he lives 2 minutes walk from your house. At the beginning it’s lovely, as he’s at your doorstep within 5 minutes of calling you asking if he could come over, but quickly you realise you’re just not that much into the guy. Are you going to stay with him JUST because it’s geographically convenient? (please say no!)
I work in Malta, it’s a challenging location because there’s not enough local talent to fill local companies’ needs (Malta’s a tiny island), so they rely on people coming from abroad, at all levels of the organisation. On the island, I keep hearing the myth that a high percentage of the attrition is due to our location “People come to Malta for 3 years tops, after that, they go home” and I doubt this… If your job is amazing, if you’ve made friends locally, if you still enjoy what attracted you to Malta in the first place (sunshine, nice food, safety, proximity to European capitals, the sea, great clubbing…) there’s no time bomb forcing anyone to leave Malta after 3 years. What I think happens is that something else than the location has deteriorated, and the location’s not enough to keep you in place. In the same way that Google HQ is located in Mountain View (Exactly! Mountain Where?!?), San Franciscans put up with the 2 hours of commute every day because what they get out of working at Google totally makes up for a long commute on a boring motorway with lots of frustrating traffic.
Benefits - NOPE!
I am not going to make a lot of friends in the HR industry by saying that in my humble opinion, benefits are lipstick on a pig. They don’t fool anyone long term. Pe-ri-od!
Back to Google. When I joined this “start up” in 2003, there were hardly any benefits. No free food, no massage chairs, no yoga lessons, not much training… yet attrition at this time was the lowest possible. We were all really surprised when someone left, because it was so rare. We were all so busy that when the first massage chair eventually arrived, it gathered dust in a corner because no one would think for a minute of using it! The company grew, the benefits started pouring it, and the attrition rate grew too. It would be an HR dream-come-true if benefits were the answers to churn, but they’re not. People don’t stay because you give them a good health insurance or you bring in the occasional speaker from outside or you have a fun get together in Barcelona. People are not stupid. Such perks are nice to have, sure, but they don’t influence the little voice that whispers in your head “Stick around, you’re in the right place”. These benefits talk to the left side of our brain, the side that analyses pros and cons consciously, they don’t reach the right side of the brain that has already decided if we’re in love or we’re not with this company.
Using the love relationship analogy, it would be the same as someone staying in an unhappy relationship predominantly because their partner has a fast car or can use friend’s cabin in Verbier for free.
Tenure - NOPE!
“People leave after 3 years, in our industry, it’s pretty normal”. Oh is it? Really? By “normal” you mean it’s right? Do you mean that it’s impossible to change this? What’s “normal”, other than a setting on your washing machine!? I don’t believe people count the months like prisoners in a cell (that’s what they do in movies, you know, with the sticks on the wall) and when they reach a certain number, they dislike the company and look elsewhere. Furthermore, the tenure one needs to get in a company is becoming shorter and shorter for it to be “acceptable” to move on to find a new role. 2 decades ago you had to stay for no less than 5 years in any role or were labeled “unstable”. Nowadays especially in the tech industry, 18 months will not shock anyone. To go back to the boyfriend analogy: Have you ever left someone you deeply love BECAUSE YOU’VE BEEN TOGETHER LONG ENOUGH?!?!?! (please say no!).
Reputation - NOPE!
We’re all a bit vain, some more than others. So sure, it feels great when you speak about the company you work for and people go “Wow! Lucky you! I can only DREAM of working for this company one day!”. This type of reaction results in a big ego boost. It’s nice. But like all ego boosts, it’s short-lived and will not cover up core issues. Ego boosts do not bring long-term satisfaction at work or anywhere else for this matter. Let’s turn this into a relationship example: Imagine you’re going out with a man who is not only very good looking but also the heart of a party. You know the type of guy, right? You can put him in front of an ambassador or a hip hop singer, he’ll be making his audience laugh out loud in less than 3 minutes, and leaves the party with everyone’s phone number. When you meet people at this party, they’re only moderately interested in you until they understand who you are going out with and then, they go like “Ohhhh! You’re [insert guy’s name here]’s girlfriend! Lucky you!”. Only thing is, he is mostly focused on appearances, and at parties, he recycles the same 4 jokes which after 3 months of dating you’ve heard 376 times. Are you going to stay with the guy just because others think he’s “cool” and you’re “lucky”? (please say no!)
Churn: What works
Acceptance - YEP! (but that’s the wrong kind of people)
Imagine that your friend is in a relationship where not much is going great, but he sticks around. When you reason with him, this is what he lists in the pros bucket:
(1) we live close to each other, that’s so convenient - location,
(2) I get along with her brother - benefits,
(3) we’ve been together for 3 years already - tenure,
(4) everyone thinks I am lucky to be with her - reputation.
To this, you add a bit of self-confidence issue (because the wrong kind of relationship will damage that):
(5) I don’t think I can get a better girlfriend. The dating market is a nightmare and I don’t think I have the energy.
People who would stay in a relationship for these reasons would obviously be selling their life short. There’s no difference with work. Employees who stay in a company for this type of reason, are not what I would call “keepers”, they say things like:
(1) the office’s 10 minute drive from my house and I’d hate a longer commuting - location,
(2) I love being able to work from home 1 day a week - benefits,
(3) I’ve only been here 1 year, it’s too soon to leave, it’ll look bad on my CV - tenure,
(4) everyone thinks I am so lucky to be working here - reputation.
To this you add the confidence sabotage that a wrong job will do to you:
(5) I don’t think I can get a better job in a better company. Furthermore, the job market is really competitive, I just can’t face the rejection.
THIS is the kind of employees who are motivated to stick around by Location, Benefits, Tenure and Reputation. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have them in my team!
Hope - YES!!!
This is the ONLY valid reason why people stick around, at work and in a relationship. Call it belief in a better future, enthusiasm, positive outlook… you get my meaning. I will call it “hope’ for the sake of simplicity. And it goes like this:
In a relationship:
1. “Sure, he’s a bit of a rough diamond but he’s so clever and wise, he surprises me every day. God knows how far this guy’s gonna go, I believe in him 100%”
2. “We are looking in the same direction: We both want to live in the countryside ultimately, and we’re both really into improving our careers right now, to reach our dream. We motivate and support each other.”
3. “We’re a good influence on each other. He’s quit smoking because he knows it disgusts me. I started training because he was concerned about my health. We constantly pull each other higher”
4. “It’s the first time I have a partner who challenges the way I think in a non aggressive manner. She asks me the right questions at the right time and with her, for the first time, I push my boundaries.”
5. “Right now he’s a great boyfriend and I know he’ll be an amazing father later on. His tenderness, patience and ethics are second to none.”
At work:
1. “It’s only a start up right now and we’re working from a small office in the suburb. But the progress we make is exhilarating, I really believe in the success of this company.”
2. “I am passionate about the problem that my company is solving, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg! We’re working on much bigger stuff that will change people’s lives!”
3. “I am surrounded by such clever people, it’s inspiring! As a result I decided to go to an evening course because I realised that I will perform better with XYZ skill under my belt. Colleagues are really supportive.”
4. “My boss is both encouraging and demanding. It’s the first time someone I look up to believes in me like this and pushes me to achieve things I never thought I could do. What a boost!”
5. “Right now I am just a marketing exec, but I know there’s room to grow in this company. They favour internal promotions. Our CEO started as a legal executive."
So there you have it, what I think really keeps (the right kind of) people in a company:
1. A strong belief that things are improving a little everyday
2. Sharing the same dream and vision as your peers
3. Being inspired and supported to grow
4. Learning, having to permanently adapt to new challenges and to revise how you function
5. Knowing that you won’t outgrow this place, feeling pushed towards the top with the sky as your limit.
Employees are not aliens, they’re people.
People are pretty simple, especially if you believe Marlow’s principles. Once you find out what truly fulfills people in a love relationship, you know how to retain key talent at work. Unfortunately for quick-fix enthusiasts: No cutting corner will do.
Published on LinkedIn