Why good employees leave

[Major Nikon]

[TreasonousBastard]

1. This is true. In my job, we have new managers and a sudden...

outflow of experienced employees.

But, no one seems to care.

[Major Nikon]

2. People often incorrectly assume that upper managers are the smartest guys in the room

My experience has been that it's usually the representatives of the union.

[annabanana]

3. well duh . . n/t

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

4. I agree

The two jobs, in my whole life and career, that I've quit on the spot, with no notice, just walked out, were because of jackass supervisors.

One was a guy who, before being promoted, was not at all bad as a co-worker. Once kicked upstairs, it was as if his head swelled and he went suddenly power mad and seemed obsessed with creating new chicken scratch, meaningless rules designed to do nothing more than make your day harder.

The other was a guy, who would blow up over nothing, get almost nose to nose with you, screaming and calling you terrible names, with spittle flying every direction. Names that if some of which were listed here, would probably garner an alert from someone who can't grasp context.

[kentauros]

5. It also depends on the people above the managers,

all the way up to the owners. If they are as uncaring, then nothing will change. They seemingly have no problem with high-turnover, possibly because they somehow continue to stay in business anyway.

[Major Nikon]

6. Less directly, yes

The reason front line managers do this is because they are either enabled through apathy and/or encouraged from those above them. In practice, the Peter principle doesn't really work because often managers are promoted far above their highest level of incompetency. The reason for this is they are judged on how well they appease those above them rather than how they actually perform.

[kentauros]

8. Okay, but I was going on personal experience.

One manufacturing company where I worked for a year, had a huge turnover rate, and not just in our department (they employed about 250 people for the shop and another forty for drafting and CNC programming; management consisted of, at most, ten people.) The owners honestly didn't care. Our supervisor even made a rather expensive mistake on a software purchase without first checking on compatibility with the software we were currently using. He did not get fired. They just made us work more weekends to make up for it.

Eventually, they did go out of business, but it was many years after I'd already left. Somehow, they managed to remain in business despite such bad business practices.

[Major Nikon]

9. It happens all the time even at the highest levels of business

Quite often managers will refuse to hold other managers responsible for their incompetence because it also reflects negatively on them. Often by the time a business figures out they are failing because of management failures, they are already swirling the bowl.

[kentauros]

11. Good point.

I have to wonder if Business Administration degrees teach this kind of thing...

[Major Nikon]

12. They do at some level, but it's lost on many

Dim son graduated from arguably the best one in the world. On one hand you can say it took him to the highest executive position in the world. On the other you can say he was utterly inept at it. I can't think of a better example.

[kentauros]

13. Yeah.

My guess, too, is that unless they are starting up a new business, they simply have no say in how management is run, even if their education tells them it will eventually run that business into the ground.

[uriel1972]

7. Good employees leave...

because they can?

[Major Nikon]

10. Actually not as much as you might think

Most people are adverse to change, especially as they get older.

[Yavin4]

14. Bad managers don't help you grow

And you have to grow in order to stay employed. You have to learn new things. You have to develop. If you're doing the same set of tasks for more than two years, you will eventually be replaced by someone cheaper or a piece of software.

[OriginalGeek]

15. A year into this job I was literally a day and a signed letter away from quitting

when my boss got canned. I held onto the letter and stayed to see what would happen next. What happened next was I got a great boss who saw the value in me and promoted me within a week of the other guy leaving. Then he got a boss who valued both of us and we've been here almost 16 years now.

I know I don't make as much here as I could in the private sector doing the same work but I make enough and I love my job and the people I work for. I can't see trading that away.

[Generic Brad]

16. I develop great employees

They leave me but stay with the company in higher positions (I have also been fortunate enough to promote around 20% of them within my team). I have helped advance way more people than I have ever terminated or who have chosen to quit. They don't always leave because their manager stinks; sometimes people leave because their manager builds their confidence and preps them for bigger and better things.

I feel I have a solemn responsibility to help people learn, grow, and achieve.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. Sometimes people get to be managers

because they are good at the technical aspects of the work they are promoted to be the manager of. I had a boss like that once. He was very good at the substance of what was involved in the job but he sucked as a manager because he micromanaged constantly. He didn't trust people to do the work and he was horrible at explaining what he wanted us to do. His emails were completely incoherent. He'd come to us and snap at us because we hadn't done something that he'd actually never told us to do, then he'd get mad when we'd tell him we didn't know what he was talking about and an argument would ensue. I liked the job itself but he was miserable to work for. Fortunately, due to a corporate reorganization he got demoted back to his original job that he was actually good at.