Why People Look For A New Job
A couple of weeks ago, I put out a poll on LinkedIn to see what had caused people to look for a new job in the past. I gave them four options for why they would begin looking and asked them to vote on their personal reasons. Pay, Boss/Supervisor, Coworkers, and Working Conditions were the four options. I hear people complain regularly that their people are leaving because the organization doesn’t pay enough. Having worked with over 1,000 HR Directors and tens of thousands of leaders, I heard this so often that I wondered if it was actually true. Although it was a small sample (80 people), it was very similar to the research outcomes I read from larger sample sizes. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, Gallup Organization, Harvard, and others have indicated that people quit a boss far more often than they quit a company. It isn’t that the company was necessarily bad or that the work was too much. It was the experience of working under the leadership of a particular person that was bad.
From my research on LinkedIn, 61% of respondents said that their boss or supervisor was the number one reason they started looking for another job. 30% said that working conditions were the number one reason. 6% said that pay was the number one reason for looking, and 3% said coworkers. One of the fascinating things about the results is that working conditions have increased significantly since the last time I did the poll (pre-COVID). One thing I found predictable was that people still began looking for another job primarily because of their boss/supervisor. Our relationship with the person we directly report to is fundamental to our success. When it is bad, it is also the primary trigger for seeking out other opportunities.
Though there is a lot to the relationship a person has with their supervisor, the fundamentals are rooted in the level of trust that exists there. If we trust the person we are working for, it is because they have consistently taken the actions necessary to build that trust, to develop our potential, and to watch out for our best interests. If they trust us, we have consistently taken the right actions to build trust with them. How a leader seeks to understand us, communicate with us, motivate us, coach us, and more will determine whether we deem them worth following. How employees show initiative, solve problems, and deliver great work will determine whether their supervisor trusts them back. Trust is a two-way street, but someone has to start the car and get us moving along the path. Working conditions were the second highest reason for looking for other work. I believe this jumped significantly post-COVID because of the variance in work from home and hybrid work, then the slingshot back to in-person.
Though each person has their own set of experiences, the overwhelming response I received from both this LinkedIn poll as well as my surveys of more than 1,000 leaders in a variety of industries. You may have had a different experience in your own work. My experience is consistent with quitting leaders more often than quitting companies. I did leave a job because of low pay, and I also left three other jobs because of bad bosses. I can definitely see how people would leave poor working conditions such as too much travel, too much sitting, too much standing, or too much of whatever other condition was intolerable to the person. The big takeaway I have from the multiple implementations of this question is…
There are some predictable reasons people are leaving organizations. Addressing and resolving those reasons will help us retain our people much better. If your organization is seeking help reducing turnover, my company has spent the last 25 years helping organizations reduce turnover, increase employee engagement, and enhance profitability. I have also found that the more a leader is developed (leadership skills), the better they recognize issues and are prepared to fix them. If we can help with that, please let us know!
Jody N Holland, M.S. Psychology
Leadership Strategist
www.jodyholland.com
