For every employee who leaves your company for higher pay or a better opportunity, there are many more for whom those "reasons" are just convenient explanations -- and the real impetus for their departure may never be brought to light. Perhaps the real question is: Why are they looking for new jobs in the first place? According to more than 80% of employees, it's not that there's greener grass on the other side of the fence; it's the preponderance of negative factors in their current workplaces -- from poor management practices to toxic workplace cultures -- that essentially push them toward the door. The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave can help you identify the "push" factors in your organization, and mitigate or eliminate all of them. Incorporating data from surveys performed by the prestigious Saratoga Institute of more than 19,000 employees, this critical book examines in depth: * How the employee and the employer travel a two-way street of expectation and reality; What are the warning signs of unmet expectations, and how can you best act on them? * How incomplete talent strategies lead to employee-job mismatches; why a passion for matching must become a core competency in your organization. * The ultimate cost of insufficient or ineffectual feedback; a five-step coaching process that builds strong and durable working relationships. * How growth and advancement opportunities are not keeping pace with new career expectations; how to create opportunities and help your employees create their own. * Best pay practices, rewards programs, and other initiatives for valuing and recognizing employees; understanding the emotional impact of compensation and recognition programs. * The real toll that stress and overwork take on your employees-and on your bottom line; a look at how the best places to work in America got that way, even without high-profile or "newfangled" perks or benefits. * How leadership and employees can (and must) build an environment of mutual trust and confidence; the three universal questions every employee needs answered, and how a disengaged workforce is the direct result of detached leadership The key to becoming an Employer of Choice -- a workplace where top talent are knocking down the doors to get in -- is to develop the attitudes and implement the programs that address each of the above areas. The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave presents 54 Best Practices that will serve as the building blocks for a proactive approach to employee satisfaction, growth, and retention."
Leigh Branham is Principal and Founder of Keeping the People, Inc., Overland Park, Kansas. Leigh has been researching and speaking about best practices in employee engagement and retention since 1995. He helps companies analyze the root causes of employee disengagement and turnover, then develop and implement strategies to grow revenues and profits by becoming better places to work.
Leigh is the co-author, with Mark Hirschfeld, of Re-Engage: How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times (McGraw-Hill, February, 2010). Leigh's previous two books--The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave: How to Recognize the Subtle Signs and Act Before It's Too Late, were selected by The Library Journal and Executive Book Summaries among the top 30 business books of the year.
He has consulted with multinational companies and spoken at human resource and leadership conferences in China, Poland, Canada, Argentina, Paraguay, and Malaysia. Leigh has been interviewed on National Public Radio, and widely quoted by the Associated Press and in publications such as Business Week as an expert on employee engagement and retention. His commentary on why companies lose good people appeared in the June, 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review. Leigh also publishes a quarterly free subscription e-newsletter--Keeping the People Report, available at www.keepingthepeople.com.
