Are you concerned that your top performers don’t appear to be hanging around for long? This can cause any business to worry!
Studies indicate that top performers are 400% more productive than your average worker. Therefore, your best workers are actually worth more than four of your average employees.
So if your top performers keep leaving your organization, you could quickly find that your company is in trouble. Therefore, it’s important to understand why top performers leave organizations.
Only then, you will be able to make the changes required to prevent your top performers from quitting your organization. Check out these top 10 reasons why top performers leave in the blog post below. Let’s get started!
1. They Want More Money
Everybody cares about making more money.
In fact, employers typically believe that around nine in ten people who quit their jobs, do so for more cash in their pockets.
However, this isn’t actually true. Only 12 percent of people who leave their jobs claim that money was the most important factor.
Nonetheless, you may be surprised to learn that high performers place an even greater emphasis on earning money than the average employee.
If you want to retain your best people, then you need to be prepared to spend more money. If you’re not willing to pay your top performers more, then someone else will.
Therefore, when considering how to keep your top workers happy, you need to make sure you’re paying them fairly.
Putting together a competitive compensation package for your workforce is crucial if you want people to hang around for longer.
Remember, it’s not only the basic salary. You should also provide your top performers with generous bonus payments to improve job satisfaction.
Give your best talent great reasons to keep working hard with regular pay raises as well. This helps to show that you recognize their excellent performance at work.
2. They Hate Their Boss
Unfortunately, many people love their jobs but hate their bosses. More than a fifth of people surveyed in one study stated they quit their jobs because they wanted to get away from their bosses.
If your workers sit next to their bosses in the office, they might find that it’s almost impossible to do anything without the boss getting involved.
Whatever issues that they have with their boss, there is practically no escape. When your top performers realize they either need to put up with their awful bosses or leave, they often choose the latter.
Naturally, any worker can get stuck with a bad boss. However, your top performers will probably find it especially frustrating working under someone with poor leadership skills.
But you can’t always blame the bosses for poor management skills, either. Over 58 percent of managers say they never received any training.
You want to avoid your best performers working under poor managers. So ensure that your leaders are trained and effective in their roles. Then, you should pair your best performers with the best managers in your organization.
3. They’re Just Bored at Work
Shockingly, around 43 percent of Americans say that they’re bored at work. This could be because they don’t have enough to keep them busy. Or perhaps it’s simply because the tasks are extremely dull and repetitive.
Of course, this is usually less of a problem for your high performers because they are usually more engaged at work. However, when your best people get bored, they won’t stay at your organization for long.
High performers are usually ambitious. You can be confident that they will refuse to waste their time being bored at work. How can you prevent this?
Ensure your high performers are engaged with interesting and challenging tasks. This will also allow them to stay productive and achieve better results for your business.
You don’t want to waste the talents and work ethic of your best performers on dull paperwork or answering the telephone. Make sure your best people don’t find themselves doing anything that doesn’t engage them.
4. No Opportunities for Career Development
Over 93 percent of workers say they will stay longer at an organization if it provides them with career development opportunities.
Your top performers don’t just want to take home their salary at the end of each month. They also want to develop skills and acquire valuable knowledge.
Surveys show that around two-thirds of top performers state that they have left an organization because there were no training opportunities.
Everyone benefits if you focus on how you can improve the qualities of your employees. Investing in your top performers is essential to retain them.
You need to assemble a package of training and career development programs. This could be anything from arranging a workshop to sending workers to conferences.
5. Too Much Stress and Overwork
Up to 55 percent of Americans report being stressed. Work is usually the biggest cause of stress in our lives.
On average, high performers are better at coping with stress and pressure compared with average employees. Nevertheless, even the best employees can suffer from stress under certain work conditions.
If your workplace is characterized by long and demanding hours in the office, these stressful conditions could drive your best employees away. That’s why you have to find ways to encourage your high performers to deal with stress better and create a better work environment.
According to one survey, over half of American workers say that they find it impossible to find time to take a proper lunch break. Without regular breaks at work and enjoying some lunch in peace, your high performers will be overworked and less productive as a consequence.
As well as a proper lunch break, you also need to provide Paid Time Off (PTO) for your workforce. Over 700 million days of paid vacation time aren’t claimed by Americans every year.
If you don’t ensure that your workplace encourages a good work-life balance, then you’ll find that your high performers won’t stay at your organization for long.
6. There is a Clash of Cultures
Every workplace has a company culture, and your company culture won’t be right for everyone. But if you want to keep your top performers, you need to make sure that there’s a match between corporate values and principles and their own.
What kind of workplace culture do you need to create if you want to keep your best workers? It’s worth noting that up to 40 percent of millennials say that they would take a pay cut to work for an environmentally sustainable and socially responsible company.
What are the ethics of your organization? Not every worker will care what your company does for society and the environment. However, if you want to appeal to the most talented and hard-working people, you need to show that you’re serious about doing good, not just making money.
You could find that you’re driving your employees away because they’re tired of your unethical business practices. Your high performers may feel that they don’t fit into your workforce due to the lack of inclusivity and diversity.
By addressing anything that you could make your best workers feel alienated, you can make sure you keep your best staff and help your business continue to grow.
7. Don’t Feel Valued or Appreciated
Up to 79 percent of workers say that they quit their jobs because they believed that their employers didn’t show that they were appreciated. When your best achievers don’t get recognized for what they do, they start to look for other job opportunities elsewhere.
You need to show your employees that you value their contributions and efforts. Of course, you may think that you’re already doing this through financial compensation. However, there’s more you can do to show your gratitude for your best people.
You should ensure that everyone in your workplace feels a sense of unity and belonging. Running social events and team-away days can encourage solidarity and teamwork within your organization.
You should also allow your high performers to stand out from the crowd. Do you provide an Employee of the Month award? This can give your best people another reason to stay focused.
You need to remember that your most productive workers need to see that you notice that they’re producing better results than everyone else. If you don’t appreciate the added value your top-performing workers give you, then they’ll start to wonder why they even bother trying.
8. Absence of Any Helpful Feedback
Giving your workers regular feedback is an important aspect of HR performance management. However, not everyone equally enjoys receiving feedback about their performance.
In fact, you might discover that some of your workers simply interpret your feedback as nasty criticism. But you’ll likely discover that your top performers particularly value feedback.
Your best people are never satisfied with their performance. They’re always pushing themselves to improve and achieve better results. Therefore, it’s essential that you share with them what they’re doing right and where they could improve.
But how much feedback is enough?
According to one survey of high performers, most of them expect monthly meetings with managers to talk about their performance. Even so, just over half of employers actually provide their employees with this type of feedback-oriented meetings.
So, if you’re currently only running annual reviews, you need to realize this simply won’t cut it for your best workers. By regularly engaging with your best workers and offering feedback, they’ll have a greater motivation to stay with your company.
9. The Desire for a Career Change
High performers are usually able to adapt and learn better than most people. That’s why the appeal of changing careers several times in their lifetime is attractive.
Your high achieving workers may have always wanted to quit their day job to become an entrepreneur. Or maybe they wanted to stop working in your industry to try teaching high schoolers instead.
You never know what career changes may appeal to your best workers. This might be out of your hands. But you can actively seek to make your workplace the best it can be.
You don’t want your high performing workers to be swept up in thinking the grass is greener somewhere else. Keeping your high performers happy is the only way you can deter them from looking at alternative career routes.
10. Taking Back Control for Themselves
High performers usually share particular characteristics. As well as always seeking feedback, being proactive and delivering on objectives, they like autonomy and independence in the workplace.
Your high performing workers will probably thrive the more you give them responsibilities. Keep challenging them to handle things by themselves and they’ll bloom.
Do you sometimes find yourself constantly looking over the shoulder of your employees? This will swiftly frustrate your top-performing workers. You need to avoid this and focus on how you can show trust in their ability to achieve.
Why Top Performers Leave Organizations
Organizations are built on the backs of top performers. So you can’t afford to consistently lose your best workers.
If you’re going to get better at retaining your workers, you need to develop an understanding of what your high performers want from an employer.
From a better salary to a sense of purpose, there are many reasons why top performers leave for other opportunities.You should ensure you’re making the right changes to prevent your best employees from leaving your company.
Do you want to know more about how to improve your productivity and engage your workforce? Get in touch with us at Solvo for more valuable business advice!
