June 19, 2025 • 45 mins
“I’m on a mission to put pressure on companies to be better places to work,” says Leigh Branham, international bestselling author of four books including The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave: How to Recognize the Subtle Signs and Act Before It’s Too Late and Re-Engage: How America’s Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times. Here, he talks about how the “burn and churn” philosophy is not helping companies and why they should focus on re-engaging burnt out and disengaged employees. Communication is key, he says, and the best leaders possess empathy.
The US-based employee retention expert also talks about the generational differences between Gen X, millennials and Gen Z-ers and the need for conversation for smooth intergenerational functioning. Listen in to know the top reasons employees leave and how one can start asking the right questions before joining a new organisation. The latter is also the subject of his latest book Don't Take That Job ‘til You Read This Book: Nine Lenses to Look Before You Leap, coauthored with Mark Hirschfeld.
Leigh is also a career transition coach and organisational consultant and helps companies better understand the root causes of employee turnover and disengagement. He is the founder and Managing Principal of Keeping the People, a talent management consulting firm.
Timestamps:
01:03 Focus on wellbeing at workplaces after the pandemic
03:58 Toxic workplaces and quiet quitting by Gen Z
06:30 The reason behind disengagement—burn and churn philosophy
09:03 The direct manager is the top reason for employees leaving
11:54 Gaps in leadership and empathy
16:10 To become an employer of choice, you have to show people you care
24:05 Difference between baby boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z
29:33 The perception of Gen Z
30:52 The reasons employees leave
37:00 "Don't take that job till you read this book”--how to assess their new employer
40:37 What to ask interviewers before you take that next job; use LinkedIn to network with those in target companies
Follow Anuradha on LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
Email: swishingmindsets@gmail.com
Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are personal. Listener discretion is advised.
The US-based employee retention expert also talks about the generational differences between Gen X, millennials and Gen Z-ers and the need for conversation for smooth intergenerational functioning. Listen in to know the top reasons employees leave and how one can start asking the right questions before joining a new organisation. The latter is also the subject of his latest book Don't Take That Job ‘til You Read This Book: Nine Lenses to Look Before You Leap, coauthored with Mark Hirschfeld.
Leigh is also a career transition coach and organisational consultant and helps companies better understand the root causes of employee turnover and disengagement. He is the founder and Managing Principal of Keeping the People, a talent management consulting firm.
Timestamps:
01:03 Focus on wellbeing at workplaces after the pandemic
03:58 Toxic workplaces and quiet quitting by Gen Z
06:30 The reason behind disengagement—burn and churn philosophy
09:03 The direct manager is the top reason for employees leaving
11:54 Gaps in leadership and empathy
16:10 To become an employer of choice, you have to show people you care
24:05 Difference between baby boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z
29:33 The perception of Gen Z
30:52 The reasons employees leave
37:00 "Don't take that job till you read this book”--how to assess their new employer
40:37 What to ask interviewers before you take that next job; use LinkedIn to network with those in target companies
Follow Anuradha on LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
Email: swishingmindsets@gmail.com
Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are personal. Listener discretion is advised.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Welcome to Swishing Mindsets.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
This is Anaradha and today I'm speaking to Lee Branham,
author of four books, including the best selling or the
most popular, I should say, the Seven Hidden reasons employees leave,
How to.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Recognize the subtle signs and act before it's too late.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Lee is also a career transition coach and organizational consultant
and helps companies better understand the root causes of employee
turnover and disengagement. He's the founder and managing principle of
Keeping the People, a talent management and consulting firm.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
So Hi, Lee, Hi are you ada?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I'm great, and thank you again for coming on my podcast.
So to jump right into it. Your book, the first
edition came out I think almost twenty years ago, that's right,
but there was a revised edition later, I think ten
years later. So do you think all of it still
holds good in today's day and age?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And do you think that anything has changed right now?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Well? I think a lot has changed as the result
of the pandemic. The pandemic gave employees a taste of
what it was like to work at home, and they
really liked it, and it also gave them time and
a little bit of cash in the United States at
least to reflect on what they really wanted out of
(01:27):
the workplace. So their expectations of more leisure time and
more caring a company that cares about their well being.
That has changed, and especially among Generation X I'm sorry
Generation Z, the people who have come along after the millennials.
(01:56):
So yes, it's recreated high actations in terms of well being,
and people are more well. They're less forgiving of companies
and in terms of how do they how do they
allow me to have more leisure time? And they're demanding
(02:20):
more of companies in terms of how it feels to
work there. So I think that pressure is good for
that to be that pressure to be on companies and
to be on senior leaders.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Especially absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's the same in India as well, because I mean
since the pandemic or maybe even before that. But mental
health is a huge priority, and especially among you know
you said.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
The Gen zs, right, it's a huge priority.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
See when I was working, I guess I was qualifying
I would qualify as Gen X probably, so you know,
mental health was not a big deal, just you know,
carried on.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
You don't want to you know, appear week.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
You don't want to appear self indulgent, so you just
say that you can't come into work, and you know,
say that, Look, I'm feeling a little depressed, so I'm
not coming in, or I'm not feeling good, so.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I'm going home. I'm staying home.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
But these days even me, actually, you know, I prioritize
mental health now. So you know, because workplaces have become
more toxic, more demanding, and more than the work. You know,
the focus is more on how many hours you're putting
in at work, right, I mean the clocking in and
flocking out, rather than the quality of work. And like
(03:38):
you mentioned in your book, it has to be fun.
Work has to be fun, the workplace has to be fun.
So the fun question is going down. So yeah, I
completely agree.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah yeah, So what do you.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, so, well, how would it describe a toxic workplace
or you know, you were saying something I think, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Well, well, sacrifice the word sacrifice is a critical word.
There are cultures of sacrifice where you're expected to sacrifice
your personal and leisure time for the company. You're expected
to take phone calls throughout the evening and the weekend
(04:17):
if need be, and there's been a revolt against this,
and as the Generation Z has confronted these kinds of expectations,
this phenomenon of quiet quitting has happened. Are you familiar
with that term?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Quite?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It's absolutely what you've mentioned as disengagement. Quite quitting is
pretty much that in today's times.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Now it may basically means I'm going to give less effort.
I'm not going to quit, but I'm going to give
less effort and I'm not going to agree to sacrifice
my personal time. So a lot of company, a lot
of the employees have left for that reason, or.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
They're still at work. They've not left, but mentally they've
checked out. I guess that's right.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, And of course the research from the Gallop Organization
shows that that only about thirty five percent of employees
are fully engaged at work, and you have most of
the rest are disengaged from one to one degree or another,
and about fifteen to twenty percent are actively disengaged, meaning
(05:35):
they're angry about about it and they are causing trouble
in the organization. They are toxic, they are demotivating their coworkers.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, so you know your book, and I think all
your other books as well three other books they draw
off from data, right, like the first one.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Seven.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
This is the second book, not the first one, Seven
Hidden Reasons Employees Leave. It was based on nineteen thy
seven hundred Exit and Current Employee Service conducted by Saratoga
Institute from nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and three. Right,
So you come across in your work, right, you're consulting
(06:19):
with organizations and you're a transition coach as well. So
what do you think is a reason for disengagement or
quite quitting as you go on it?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Well, I think the problem begins at the senior leadership level.
And you talk about mindsets. I know in some of
your research, and there there is a there are very
distinctive mindsets that the best places to work have that
the workplace the worst places to work do not have.
(06:52):
And you know, one of those mindsets is, you know,
we'll just burn people out until they lay you know.
And it's it's a mindset of replacement as opposed to
engagement and retention. So and I confronted this in my
(07:16):
you know, in my thirties when I was beginning to
do this type of work, that it's what's called the
burn and churn philosophy, and it really looks as employees
as a cannon fodder so to speak.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
You know, will we'll, we'll accept a certain amount of turnover,
and they get used to it, and they call it
the cost of doing business.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
And they don't think about the cost of having disengaged
workers as a as a cost and the cost of
refilling that position when some one leaves, because it's not
just the cost of recruiting a new person and training
that new person, it's the fact that it usually takes
(08:10):
five to six months to get the person who who
is recruited to get to the same level of competence
as the person who left. That's that's a generalization. But
if a lot of companies failed to recognize the ramp
the ramping up time that is required. So a lot
(08:34):
of companies just don't think a lot about these kinds
of costs. They just they just let they just turn
people over and they call it the cost of doing business.
Whereas the employers of choice realize that treating people well
(08:55):
produces a business advantage. So it very justinct difference in
the mindset of senior leaders. Now, the Gallup Organization has
spent years reporting that the manager is the number one
reason employees leave the direct manager. What they fail to
(09:17):
emphasize is that the managers take their cues from the
people at the top who really establish the culture about
whether you care about your people as people or you don't.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, it's what we hear. The company culture. It all
trickles down from the top, right whatever the culture.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Is exactly, Yeah, absolutely, But.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
You have this tradition of the mindset of if the
more we give to employees, the more they will take advantage.
And it's just the opposite of the more we give
to employees, the more they will want to give back.
And we found that to be true. I mean, one
(10:06):
of the great examples I use is Costco is a
large grocery and general merchandized chain in the United States,
and the CEO was giving better benefits than most of
his competing companies, and his board was complaining about it,
(10:29):
and he told the board, we're building a company for
the long term here, not the next quarter, not the
quarterly profits. And he spoke up against the board. But
you talk to Costco employees, they rave about him. Now
(10:49):
he's retired, but they would always say, we love him,
you know, because of the way he cares about us
and gives us better benefits than people at other companies.
So it's just a it's just the long term view
versus the short term view.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, it's absolutely a short term view and when you're
you know, being so self serving. But you know, it's
interesting what you said that it's a leadership that matters.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Right. So the quality of leadership today.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Is not great, I'm sure in America, in India, all
over the world, and that is a real problem, right,
because you know, you have people who are incompetent, or
they're not willing to coach or train, or you know,
upscale their employees a lot of things, not you know,
giving in two demands for leave, et cetera. Right, So,
(11:45):
what do you think makes a good leader today? And
what do you see around you? What are the challenges
or you know, gaps and leadership that you see.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Well, I think the good leaders have have usually have
had a bad boss. And some of the best leaders
I've spoken to tell me about having a bad boss
early in their life and they have resolved to never
do the things the bad boss did. And it's amazing
(12:17):
how often I find that as I talk to senior
leaders who do tend to care and want to build
an employer of choice. But empathy is the is the
I think the distinguishing characteristic. The best leaders have empathy
(12:38):
for the average worker.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, emotional intelligence we call it now, I'm sorry, I
said emotional intelligence.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Emotional intelligence, that's right, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
But a lot of a lot of leaders in corporate
life are good at meeting there getting results, but they
still may be lacking in empathy. They don't necessarily treat
people well. They get results in spite of the way
(13:13):
they treat people, and so companies hang on to these
sort of people. And there's one company that I well
I followed that used to have a bad manager identification program. Well,
they they were alert to which managers employees were complaining about,
(13:38):
or which managers had the highest turnover rates, and some
of them were getting results in spite of it. So
it comes down to a decision at the very highest
level do you keep these people that are getting results
or do you replace them? And the companies the senior
(13:59):
leader that replace those types of managers are the ones
who who are able to build credibility among their workforce
that you know what, I think they do really do
care about us. So, you know, one of the things
that some companies do is they they they give they
(14:22):
have three sixty feedback of their managers where the employees
rate their manager. And more and more companies are doing this.
More and more companies are doing engagement surveys that help
them to find out where are the managers who have
(14:42):
the lowest scores, and then they can take action with
those people.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, that's interesting and much needed. I have been in meetings,
you know, with you know, a sales bus seals what
you want to see a manager, you know, se as
manager is being berated because they didn't meet their targets.
And employee turnover is very high. But in a lot
of companies you see that, you know, but the leader
(15:09):
stays and the people under him keep changing, you know.
So it's like a revolving dough.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
People keep coming in and going, but nobody really cares
because and maybe senior people don't come in so much,
and it's the junior people who keep coming in meeting targets,
not meeting targets. But tell me, you know, so, like
you said, most companies don't care as long as the
results are being broadened, right, but why.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Should they care?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I mean, could you emphasize that a little both, because
you know, the leader stays and the people under him
have to keep leaving, and some of them on anxiety
medication and things like that. So why should the company
care about not retaining.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Such a manager?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And you know, maybe you know, inculcating values of empathy
and emotional intelligence and such.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
It is because the donna was being made. It's all right, right, Well.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
If if you want to become a true employer of choice,
then you have to you have to treat people well.
You have to. You have to show them that you
care about their their well being, and training managers is
a big piece of that, you know, and a lot
(16:30):
of a lot of companies have They don't do training
of managers at all. They simply replace and promote and
put people in who are new to being managers. And
they think that they have to know more than the
people they're supervising, and that leads to a lot of
(16:56):
destructive behavior because they pretend to know more, and they
put up a front that they're supposed to tell their
employees everything that the employee is supposed to do, instead
of recognizing that the employees probably know how to do
(17:19):
everything that needs to be done, and that their job
as a manager is to listen to what each of
their team members like about their work work and what
they need, because every team member is a little bit different.
(17:41):
And one of the things I recommend is an engagement
discussion that should happen at least monthly, preferably weekly check
in discussion with each of the team members saying I
just want you to to know I value you, I
(18:02):
appreciate your contributions, I want you to stick around, and
I just want you to know how you're feeling about
things right now? What could be better? How could we
make this a better team and a better workplace. So
I've created a two page guide with about fifteen questions
(18:25):
to ask the employee during one of these meetings, and
coming out of that meeting, there should be some kind
of an agreement of something the manager will do to
support this employee, but also something the employee will do
to create their own conditions for success and continue to
(18:49):
be engaged. Now, not every situation can be resolved, but
at least it shows goodwill in trying to create a
better a better place to work, so that that is
the bottom line recommendation to most of the work that
(19:10):
I do that these engagement discussions begin to happen with
each team member. But it's foreign to most managers. They're
not used to the idea of allowing the employee to
be sort of on an equal level of coming to
(19:32):
an agreement about how we need to partner and in
your future success. So that's that's that's a big change,
and but I've created tools for that to happen. Each
each employee may be potentially vulnerable to leave for a
(19:56):
different reason those one employee cares more about career advancement,
and the next employee cares more about work life balance,
and the next employee just wants to use the skills
that they have. So I would say most managers are
(20:18):
a little bit unclear about what is most important to
each of their team members. So you know, I've written
about the seven hidden reasons employees leave, but reason number
one for one employee may be different for another employee
(20:39):
who might lead for reason number four. So it's important
to know the seven reasons, but it's even more important
to know which reason would be the one that each
team member might lead for.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So you're seeing that you know it may change. Things
may change because you see that.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
You know, employees are also reviewing their managers, right they're superiors,
and you think maybe with the gen Z we're all
looking with great hope at the gen Zers now, so
you think there is a.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Change coming.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
In what way?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
In maybe better?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
You know, as you said that, you know more employee engagements,
sitting down with people asking them what they need to change,
how they work, what their workplace to look like. You know,
if they're struggling at work, how you know what kind
of support they need.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Things like that.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Well, I think you have a reaction against that. Some
managers will say, no way, I'm not gonna. I'm not
gonna baby. These these employees, you know, they're they're they're unrealistic.
They've had their faces in screens most of their lives.
(21:59):
There areward and uncomfortable dealing face to face with people.
So there's a lot of pushback among managers right now
as well. So I do think that companies need to
recognize that gen Z's are different, you know, because of
(22:21):
the way they grew up, and you know they're they're
more about data and looking at their phones and you
know not you know, I've heard a lot of complaints
from managers that they they're just they're awkward in dealing
(22:41):
in a social situation like with a customer.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, some managers.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Yeah yeah, some managers are afraid to put them face
to face with the customer for that reason. So you know,
there needs to be a discussion about that, and the
honest discussion. You know, I used to train I used
to train companies about the differences in the generations, and
(23:08):
there's a lot of finger pointing and blaming or dismissing.
You know, the traditional people dismissed a lot of the boomers.
The boomers dismissed a lot of the exers and millennials
because they weren't like me. You know, the workplace changed,
(23:30):
but the mindset didn't change. They should have to go
through the same things I had to go through.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Very true, because I've got myself seeing that to somebody,
you know, oh, we worked all night, all day, why
can't you do it? You know, And I've heard myself
say that, and I realized, oh, that's so wrong, you know,
like a little later. So you know, it's very interesting
what you're seeing Lee that you know, you worked on
this subject, so could you maybe you don't give us
a difference, according to you, between gen X meals and
(24:01):
gen Z what is the how is the approach different?
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Well, there was a big difference between the traditional types
who were born before nineteen forty six. You know, they
were the ones that were willing to sacrifice their personal life.
You know, they had gone through the depression, they had
they knew what it was like to sacrifice. And then
(24:27):
the baby Boomers came along, and it was about self fulfillment,
you know, and so they thought the baby boomers were
spoiled and you know, we're so concerned about their individual
needs that they weren't thinking about the organization. They weren't
(24:48):
thinking about the community as a whole. And so there
was a you know, there were a lot of selfish
boomers looking for their own satisfaction in the workplace, very idealistic,
unrealistic to a large degree. And then the exers came along,
(25:13):
very independent for the most part, latch key kids who
had grown up with boomer parents who were working too
long and sometimes traditional parents, and they watched, they watched,
they and the millennials watched as their parents were fired, terminated,
(25:37):
let go. During the eighties and nineties, there was a
lot of you know, I worked in the outplacement field
as a job search coach with executives who had lost
their jobs and they had sacrificed for years working long
(25:58):
hours and weekends and traveling because the company wanted them
to relocate. And their children watched all this happened, and
they said, we don't want that. We don't want that.
So exers and millennials became very disillusioned with what they
(26:22):
saw in the modern workplace, and they they want more
than that. They're they're more independent, they're more likely to
want to go into business for themselves. So we've seen
a lot of that. But the companies that are doing
(26:47):
better with mixing the generations are the ones that have
open discussion about their differences. You know that they do
bring a insult at in and talk about these are
the general traits of each each one. And you sit
in a boomer down and you talk with a millennial,
(27:12):
and they ask each other that one question, what is
one thing about you that's very different than the stereotype
about your generation, And that's that's a healthy discussion. But
in my research on diversity, the more diversity in an organization,
(27:36):
the more likely their engagement scores are going to be lower,
and the reason for that is that most diverse this
as far as age is concerned, I didn't look at
it in terms of male, female, gender or anything like that.
But when you have a almost equal to vision of
(28:00):
the generations in the workplace, there's so many there's so
many differences that the reason there's reason for conflict, and
conflict happens, which reduces your engagement unless you're training people
how to deal with differences and how to deal with conflict.
(28:24):
And most companies don't don't do that, they don't train
on how to deal with differences. So there's been a
reaction against diversity in the United States partly because of this.
Some of these diversity initiatives that companies have undertaken have
(28:49):
failed because they didn't manage the diversity and train their
employees in how to deal with these differences, how to
understand each other. So it's very unfortunate that that's happened.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yeah, a good idea, but people need training. Yeah yeah, yeah.
What about gen z ers? How do you see them?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
They get a lot of flak for being you know,
basically flaky, I guess for lack of a better word.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
They want they don't want to work hard. That's what
you hear, right, Huh. They can quit at a moment's notice.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
I mean that's the stereotype, right, So what what do
you see?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Well, that's that's a big part of it. Yeah, they're
just seen as naive and oistered with their computers and
and awkward and social situations. Those are those are the
most common things that other generations see. But you know,
(29:56):
they need to be properly onboarded. They need to be
given instructions on how they are seen and feedback about it,
you know. But they're they're tremendous variation in each generation.
(30:17):
Not every not every generation Z individual is fits the stereotype.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I just love the question that you know, boomer comes
in and a millennial comes in, and you ask each other,
how do you not fit the stereotypes? That's such a
lovely question, really, I know, a wonderful conversation startup.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Absolutely, But do you want do you want to talk
about the reasons employees leave?
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah, you know. I analyzed the data of twenty plus
thousand exit interviews. I had nineteen thousand and then for
my next edition of the book, which came out in
twenty twelve, I did another one thousand surveys from my
(31:10):
website about people who had left companies responding why they left.
The process of leaving is very different. It's not just
the reason they leave, it's how they go about leaving.
You know that usually something happens that is a triggering
(31:35):
event that causes the person, whether it happens in the
first week on the job or six months into the job,
but something that happens that make them think that I'm
in the wrong place. But they don't necessarily quit at
that moment. They stay until they have decided to look
(31:58):
for another job, or they maybe they start looking but
very passively, and then finally they leave. So there's this
period of time between the shocking triggering event and the
decision to leave and then the actual leaving, and during
(32:20):
that time the employees can be re engaged. That's something
a lot of managers don't think about, because every manager
needs to be mindful of the fact that if you've
got six employees, there are probably three of them that
are thinking about leaving, and you don't want to be
(32:40):
shocked when they finally do. You want to engage them
in a discussion and find out why they might leave,
and that's how we get back to the re engagement discussion.
But I would say the number one reason employee employees
leave is the culture which and the culture is you know,
(33:01):
generated at the top. As we said, does this Does
my senior leader care about me as a person?
Speaker 1 (33:10):
You know?
Speaker 3 (33:11):
And when they see behavior that indicates that they don't,
that's when they begin to think about leaving the other
the other. Employee well being is another main reason. Can
I can I do my job but also leave when
(33:33):
I've got a personal situation or my my child has
a baseball game to go to? Do the benefits meet
my needs? If something were to happen to me, I
get sick, would the company have a compassionate attitude about
(33:53):
me taking work off? You know, there's a company that
you know provides a parking space that's more convenient to
people who are going through chemotherapy, for example, for cancer,
things like that. So employee well being is one of
(34:14):
the top reasons right now. Do they are they compassionate
about allowing me time to do family things and raise
my children as opposed to demanding that I that I
take this phone call, you know on a Saturday night
(34:36):
and so forth. Career advancement is a big one. You know,
do which which of your people care most about advancing.
Most people want to advance, but some people want to
continue to do the job they have without having to
(34:58):
manage people. I once had a manager who wanted to
promote me into his position as a manager, which he
thought he was doing me a big favor, but it
wasn't what I wanted to do. And you know, we
talk about the golden rule, there's also the platinum rule,
(35:19):
which means, you know, doing unto others as they would
like to have be done unto you know, so you
assume everybody wants what you want, but that's not necessarily
the case. So understanding who of your people are most
(35:44):
focused on career advancement and promotions and so forth, that's
a big piece of it. So there are seven of
these reasons, and I would recommend managers read the book thoroughly,
(36:05):
absorb you know, what it means to have and have
differences among your team about which one is the most
important and and go from there.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, thank you for you know, giving us that in detail.
I'm sure it will help listeners as well. And yes,
people must read the book. I have gone through it,
and you've really listed it out very logically, and I'm
happy to see that some of it still holds true.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
You know, my co author, I wrote a book called
re Engage with a co author who is colleague of mine,
Mark Hurstfeldt, and he called me and he said, what
if we wrote a book where we took the seven
reasons employees lead and look through the other end of
(36:58):
the telescope from a standpoint of the job seeker. And
that's what we did. We wrote a book that we
have released just in the last year called Don't take
that job Till you read this book. And basically the
idea is for employees to look at the seven reasons
(37:18):
employees leave in general and to think about which one
is most important to them, and to use it as
a lens for looking at their next employer, and to
ask the right questions as they research the organization before
going to work there, and to ask the right questions
(37:41):
and job interviews, and preferably before you talk not just
to your future manager, but to your future teammates and
ask the manager, could I meet some of the people
I would be working with, because chances are they're going
to give you a more honest, fuller picture of what
(38:05):
it's like to work there.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
And you know, going back to your book re Engaged, right,
that's you said that even between becoming disengaged and actually quitting,
companies can re engage. So I just want to mention
that that's your book, right, how engage, how it has
best places to work inspire extra effort and extraordinary times.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
We have an organization called Quantum Workplace, who was affiliated
with my former employer, and they the engagement survey I
created for that company, right Management was incorporated at Quantum
(38:49):
Research and used as the best place to work competition.
We had forty four business journals and cities around the
United States, and each year, those business journals do a
best place to Work competition and they give the survey
(39:11):
to any company who wants to be in that competition,
and every employee in that those companies completes that survey.
And the book that we wrote called Reengage, was based
on two point one million surveys that were completed in
(39:32):
those competitions. And the universal drivers of engagement were the
opposite of the seven hidden reasons employees leave. In other words,
there's almost a one to one correlation between the reasons
employees leave and the reasons they they stay. I mean,
(39:56):
just it's the mirror image.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
In other words, Yeah, which makes sense. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
And your last book you said, you know, don't take
this job till you take that job till you read
this book.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Right, That's what it is. Have I got it write?
Speaker 3 (40:10):
That's right? And there are nine lenses that we asked
the reader to look through before they take their next job.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
I want to know some of what are some of
these questions that you ask your network, you know, your
future peers in that company. What are some of these
questions that people should be asking Since you're also a
transition career coach, people come to you, So what are
the things that you know one should be asking for.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Well, we recommend that people get on LinkedIn and research
the histories of people on LinkedIn. You can look at
their career histories and you can network your way to
people who have worked for the company that you're interested in,
(41:00):
and you can get an introduction to those people and
you can ask them what it was like to work there. Now,
you chances are that if you if you talk to
enough people in your own network and you tell them
who your target companies are and show them a list
of your target companies. Most people will say, oh, I
(41:22):
know somebody there, or I know somebody who knows somebody there,
And you can network your way to people who have
lived and worked in that culture and can tell you
what it's like there. You can also go to glassdoor.
(41:43):
You know familiar with Glassdoor? Yeah, well you can find
out a lot just from employees' comments on Glassdoor. But
when you when you're in the interview, it pays to
asked to speak to people other than the manager. It
(42:03):
pays to ask the manager what is your what would
you consider your management style to be? Can you give
me an example of someone who's been promoted really fast
in your department? Can you give me an example of
(42:26):
how you what your practices are as far as employee
well being and benefits? There are a lot of very
pointed questions.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
But in India, managers have huge egos, so they don't
They have huge egos, so they're not going to like
being asked all these questions.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah, I know what you mean. I guess that's true
here as well. So you have to ask it in
the in the right.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Way, Yeah, the smart way, And and.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
You you have to know when too many questions is enough.
You know, if you ask too many questions they you
can get a negative reaction.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah, but I think the LinkedIn idea is a great one.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
You reach out and connect with past employees and ask
them about the culture.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Yeah, there's a hunter. There's a premium version of LinkedIn
that that costs a little more, but you can do
so much more with it. You can. You can find
secondary and tertiary you know, referrals that way. So and
(43:48):
reading your local business journal it helps quite a bit
as well.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
So basically we should be picking our next job right
and a lot of them are doing that. They're saying that,
you know, instead of like we are rejecting companies now
if we you know, if it doesn't take all the
right boxes.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
So that's happening.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
You mentioned it in one of your interviews, and that's
actually very true.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Yeah, I think, you know, part of my mission in
life is to put more pressure on companies to be
better places to work. And if individual come, individual people
do enough of that, you know, and start you know,
(44:37):
rejecting companies based on their reputations, I think that could
have an effect.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, absolutely, Lee, would you like to add anything. I
think we've taken a lot of your time already. Would
you like to add anything or any message for employees
and employers maybe?
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Well. I think the big message here is to communicate more.
You know, ah, have more frequent discussions. Yeah, ask for
more time. If you're an employee and you're not getting
enough feedback, ask for more feedback. People get intimidated by
(45:20):
by the manager, and uh, don't don't use the power
that should be theirs. So win in doubt over communicate.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
That's a great one, and don't lose the power. Thank
you so much, Lee for doing this.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
That was my pleasure.
Hi, Welcome to Swishing Mindsets.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
This is Anaradha and today I'm speaking to Lee Branham,
author of four books, including the best selling or the
most popular, I should say, the Seven Hidden reasons employees leave,
How to.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Recognize the subtle signs and act before it's too late.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Lee is also a career transition coach and organizational consultant
and helps companies better understand the root causes of employee
turnover and disengagement. He's the founder and managing principle of
Keeping the People, a talent management and consulting firm.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
So Hi, Lee, Hi are you ada?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I'm great, and thank you again for coming on my podcast.
So to jump right into it. Your book, the first
edition came out I think almost twenty years ago, that's right,
but there was a revised edition later, I think ten
years later. So do you think all of it still
holds good in today's day and age?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And do you think that anything has changed right now?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Well? I think a lot has changed as the result
of the pandemic. The pandemic gave employees a taste of
what it was like to work at home, and they
really liked it, and it also gave them time and
a little bit of cash in the United States at
least to reflect on what they really wanted out of
(01:27):
the workplace. So their expectations of more leisure time and
more caring a company that cares about their well being.
That has changed, and especially among Generation X I'm sorry
Generation Z, the people who have come along after the millennials.
(01:56):
So yes, it's recreated high actations in terms of well being,
and people are more well. They're less forgiving of companies
and in terms of how do they how do they
allow me to have more leisure time? And they're demanding
(02:20):
more of companies in terms of how it feels to
work there. So I think that pressure is good for
that to be that pressure to be on companies and
to be on senior leaders.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Especially absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's the same in India as well, because I mean
since the pandemic or maybe even before that. But mental
health is a huge priority, and especially among you know
you said.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
The Gen zs, right, it's a huge priority.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
See when I was working, I guess I was qualifying
I would qualify as Gen X probably, so you know,
mental health was not a big deal, just you know,
carried on.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
You don't want to you know, appear week.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
You don't want to appear self indulgent, so you just
say that you can't come into work, and you know,
say that, Look, I'm feeling a little depressed, so I'm
not coming in, or I'm not feeling good, so.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I'm going home. I'm staying home.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
But these days even me, actually, you know, I prioritize
mental health now. So you know, because workplaces have become
more toxic, more demanding, and more than the work. You know,
the focus is more on how many hours you're putting
in at work, right, I mean the clocking in and
flocking out, rather than the quality of work. And like
(03:38):
you mentioned in your book, it has to be fun.
Work has to be fun, the workplace has to be fun.
So the fun question is going down. So yeah, I
completely agree.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah yeah, So what do you.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, so, well, how would it describe a toxic workplace
or you know, you were saying something I think, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Well, well, sacrifice the word sacrifice is a critical word.
There are cultures of sacrifice where you're expected to sacrifice
your personal and leisure time for the company. You're expected
to take phone calls throughout the evening and the weekend
(04:17):
if need be, and there's been a revolt against this,
and as the Generation Z has confronted these kinds of expectations,
this phenomenon of quiet quitting has happened. Are you familiar
with that term?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Quite?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It's absolutely what you've mentioned as disengagement. Quite quitting is
pretty much that in today's times.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Now it may basically means I'm going to give less effort.
I'm not going to quit, but I'm going to give
less effort and I'm not going to agree to sacrifice
my personal time. So a lot of company, a lot
of the employees have left for that reason, or.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
They're still at work. They've not left, but mentally they've
checked out. I guess that's right.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, And of course the research from the Gallop Organization
shows that that only about thirty five percent of employees
are fully engaged at work, and you have most of
the rest are disengaged from one to one degree or another,
and about fifteen to twenty percent are actively disengaged, meaning
(05:35):
they're angry about about it and they are causing trouble
in the organization. They are toxic, they are demotivating their coworkers.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, so you know your book, and I think all
your other books as well three other books they draw
off from data, right, like the first one.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Seven.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
This is the second book, not the first one, Seven
Hidden Reasons Employees Leave. It was based on nineteen thy
seven hundred Exit and Current Employee Service conducted by Saratoga
Institute from nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and three. Right,
So you come across in your work, right, you're consulting
(06:19):
with organizations and you're a transition coach as well. So
what do you think is a reason for disengagement or
quite quitting as you go on it?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Well, I think the problem begins at the senior leadership level.
And you talk about mindsets. I know in some of
your research, and there there is a there are very
distinctive mindsets that the best places to work have that
the workplace the worst places to work do not have.
(06:52):
And you know, one of those mindsets is, you know,
we'll just burn people out until they lay you know.
And it's it's a mindset of replacement as opposed to
engagement and retention. So and I confronted this in my
(07:16):
you know, in my thirties when I was beginning to
do this type of work, that it's what's called the
burn and churn philosophy, and it really looks as employees
as a cannon fodder so to speak.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
You know, will we'll, we'll accept a certain amount of turnover,
and they get used to it, and they call it
the cost of doing business.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
And they don't think about the cost of having disengaged
workers as a as a cost and the cost of
refilling that position when some one leaves, because it's not
just the cost of recruiting a new person and training
that new person, it's the fact that it usually takes
(08:10):
five to six months to get the person who who
is recruited to get to the same level of competence
as the person who left. That's that's a generalization. But
if a lot of companies failed to recognize the ramp
the ramping up time that is required. So a lot
(08:34):
of companies just don't think a lot about these kinds
of costs. They just they just let they just turn
people over and they call it the cost of doing business.
Whereas the employers of choice realize that treating people well
(08:55):
produces a business advantage. So it very justinct difference in
the mindset of senior leaders. Now, the Gallup Organization has
spent years reporting that the manager is the number one
reason employees leave the direct manager. What they fail to
(09:17):
emphasize is that the managers take their cues from the
people at the top who really establish the culture about
whether you care about your people as people or you don't.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, it's what we hear. The company culture. It all
trickles down from the top, right whatever the culture.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Is exactly, Yeah, absolutely, But.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
You have this tradition of the mindset of if the
more we give to employees, the more they will take advantage.
And it's just the opposite of the more we give
to employees, the more they will want to give back.
And we found that to be true. I mean, one
(10:06):
of the great examples I use is Costco is a
large grocery and general merchandized chain in the United States,
and the CEO was giving better benefits than most of
his competing companies, and his board was complaining about it,
(10:29):
and he told the board, we're building a company for
the long term here, not the next quarter, not the
quarterly profits. And he spoke up against the board. But
you talk to Costco employees, they rave about him. Now
(10:49):
he's retired, but they would always say, we love him,
you know, because of the way he cares about us
and gives us better benefits than people at other companies.
So it's just a it's just the long term view
versus the short term view.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, it's absolutely a short term view and when you're
you know, being so self serving. But you know, it's
interesting what you said that it's a leadership that matters.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Right. So the quality of leadership today.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Is not great, I'm sure in America, in India, all
over the world, and that is a real problem, right,
because you know, you have people who are incompetent, or
they're not willing to coach or train, or you know,
upscale their employees a lot of things, not you know,
giving in two demands for leave, et cetera. Right, So,
(11:45):
what do you think makes a good leader today? And
what do you see around you? What are the challenges
or you know, gaps and leadership that you see.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Well, I think the good leaders have have usually have
had a bad boss. And some of the best leaders
I've spoken to tell me about having a bad boss
early in their life and they have resolved to never
do the things the bad boss did. And it's amazing
(12:17):
how often I find that as I talk to senior
leaders who do tend to care and want to build
an employer of choice. But empathy is the is the
I think the distinguishing characteristic. The best leaders have empathy
(12:38):
for the average worker.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, emotional intelligence we call it now, I'm sorry, I
said emotional intelligence.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Emotional intelligence, that's right, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
But a lot of a lot of leaders in corporate
life are good at meeting there getting results, but they
still may be lacking in empathy. They don't necessarily treat
people well. They get results in spite of the way
(13:13):
they treat people, and so companies hang on to these
sort of people. And there's one company that I well
I followed that used to have a bad manager identification program. Well,
they they were alert to which managers employees were complaining about,
(13:38):
or which managers had the highest turnover rates, and some
of them were getting results in spite of it. So
it comes down to a decision at the very highest
level do you keep these people that are getting results
or do you replace them? And the companies the senior
(13:59):
leader that replace those types of managers are the ones
who who are able to build credibility among their workforce
that you know what, I think they do really do
care about us. So, you know, one of the things
that some companies do is they they they give they
(14:22):
have three sixty feedback of their managers where the employees
rate their manager. And more and more companies are doing this.
More and more companies are doing engagement surveys that help
them to find out where are the managers who have
(14:42):
the lowest scores, and then they can take action with
those people.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, that's interesting and much needed. I have been in meetings,
you know, with you know, a sales bus seals what
you want to see a manager, you know, se as
manager is being berated because they didn't meet their targets.
And employee turnover is very high. But in a lot
of companies you see that, you know, but the leader
(15:09):
stays and the people under him keep changing, you know.
So it's like a revolving dough.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
People keep coming in and going, but nobody really cares
because and maybe senior people don't come in so much,
and it's the junior people who keep coming in meeting targets,
not meeting targets. But tell me, you know, so, like
you said, most companies don't care as long as the
results are being broadened, right, but why.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Should they care?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I mean, could you emphasize that a little both, because
you know, the leader stays and the people under him
have to keep leaving, and some of them on anxiety
medication and things like that. So why should the company
care about not retaining.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Such a manager?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And you know, maybe you know, inculcating values of empathy
and emotional intelligence and such.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
It is because the donna was being made. It's all right, right, Well.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
If if you want to become a true employer of choice,
then you have to you have to treat people well.
You have to. You have to show them that you
care about their their well being, and training managers is
a big piece of that, you know, and a lot
(16:30):
of a lot of companies have They don't do training
of managers at all. They simply replace and promote and
put people in who are new to being managers. And
they think that they have to know more than the
people they're supervising, and that leads to a lot of
(16:56):
destructive behavior because they pretend to know more, and they
put up a front that they're supposed to tell their
employees everything that the employee is supposed to do, instead
of recognizing that the employees probably know how to do
(17:19):
everything that needs to be done, and that their job
as a manager is to listen to what each of
their team members like about their work work and what
they need, because every team member is a little bit different.
(17:41):
And one of the things I recommend is an engagement
discussion that should happen at least monthly, preferably weekly check
in discussion with each of the team members saying I
just want you to to know I value you, I
(18:02):
appreciate your contributions, I want you to stick around, and
I just want you to know how you're feeling about
things right now? What could be better? How could we
make this a better team and a better workplace. So
I've created a two page guide with about fifteen questions
(18:25):
to ask the employee during one of these meetings, and
coming out of that meeting, there should be some kind
of an agreement of something the manager will do to
support this employee, but also something the employee will do
to create their own conditions for success and continue to
(18:49):
be engaged. Now, not every situation can be resolved, but
at least it shows goodwill in trying to create a
better a better place to work, so that that is
the bottom line recommendation to most of the work that
(19:10):
I do that these engagement discussions begin to happen with
each team member. But it's foreign to most managers. They're
not used to the idea of allowing the employee to
be sort of on an equal level of coming to
(19:32):
an agreement about how we need to partner and in
your future success. So that's that's that's a big change,
and but I've created tools for that to happen. Each
each employee may be potentially vulnerable to leave for a
(19:56):
different reason those one employee cares more about career advancement,
and the next employee cares more about work life balance,
and the next employee just wants to use the skills
that they have. So I would say most managers are
(20:18):
a little bit unclear about what is most important to
each of their team members. So you know, I've written
about the seven hidden reasons employees leave, but reason number
one for one employee may be different for another employee
(20:39):
who might lead for reason number four. So it's important
to know the seven reasons, but it's even more important
to know which reason would be the one that each
team member might lead for.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So you're seeing that you know it may change. Things
may change because you see that.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
You know, employees are also reviewing their managers, right they're superiors,
and you think maybe with the gen Z we're all
looking with great hope at the gen Zers now, so
you think there is a.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Change coming.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
In what way?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
In maybe better?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
You know, as you said that, you know more employee engagements,
sitting down with people asking them what they need to change,
how they work, what their workplace to look like. You know,
if they're struggling at work, how you know what kind
of support they need.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Things like that.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Well, I think you have a reaction against that. Some
managers will say, no way, I'm not gonna. I'm not
gonna baby. These these employees, you know, they're they're they're unrealistic.
They've had their faces in screens most of their lives.
(21:59):
There areward and uncomfortable dealing face to face with people.
So there's a lot of pushback among managers right now
as well. So I do think that companies need to
recognize that gen Z's are different, you know, because of
(22:21):
the way they grew up, and you know they're they're
more about data and looking at their phones and you
know not you know, I've heard a lot of complaints
from managers that they they're just they're awkward in dealing
(22:41):
in a social situation like with a customer.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, some managers.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Yeah yeah, some managers are afraid to put them face
to face with the customer for that reason. So you know,
there needs to be a discussion about that, and the
honest discussion. You know, I used to train I used
to train companies about the differences in the generations, and
(23:08):
there's a lot of finger pointing and blaming or dismissing.
You know, the traditional people dismissed a lot of the boomers.
The boomers dismissed a lot of the exers and millennials
because they weren't like me. You know, the workplace changed,
(23:30):
but the mindset didn't change. They should have to go
through the same things I had to go through.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Very true, because I've got myself seeing that to somebody,
you know, oh, we worked all night, all day, why
can't you do it? You know, And I've heard myself
say that, and I realized, oh, that's so wrong, you know,
like a little later. So you know, it's very interesting
what you're seeing Lee that you know, you worked on
this subject, so could you maybe you don't give us
a difference, according to you, between gen X meals and
(24:01):
gen Z what is the how is the approach different?
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Well, there was a big difference between the traditional types
who were born before nineteen forty six. You know, they
were the ones that were willing to sacrifice their personal life.
You know, they had gone through the depression, they had
they knew what it was like to sacrifice. And then
(24:27):
the baby Boomers came along, and it was about self fulfillment,
you know, and so they thought the baby boomers were
spoiled and you know, we're so concerned about their individual
needs that they weren't thinking about the organization. They weren't
(24:48):
thinking about the community as a whole. And so there
was a you know, there were a lot of selfish
boomers looking for their own satisfaction in the workplace, very idealistic,
unrealistic to a large degree. And then the exers came along,
(25:13):
very independent for the most part, latch key kids who
had grown up with boomer parents who were working too
long and sometimes traditional parents, and they watched, they watched,
they and the millennials watched as their parents were fired, terminated,
(25:37):
let go. During the eighties and nineties, there was a
lot of you know, I worked in the outplacement field
as a job search coach with executives who had lost
their jobs and they had sacrificed for years working long
(25:58):
hours and weekends and traveling because the company wanted them
to relocate. And their children watched all this happened, and
they said, we don't want that. We don't want that.
So exers and millennials became very disillusioned with what they
(26:22):
saw in the modern workplace, and they they want more
than that. They're they're more independent, they're more likely to
want to go into business for themselves. So we've seen
a lot of that. But the companies that are doing
(26:47):
better with mixing the generations are the ones that have
open discussion about their differences. You know that they do
bring a insult at in and talk about these are
the general traits of each each one. And you sit
in a boomer down and you talk with a millennial,
(27:12):
and they ask each other that one question, what is
one thing about you that's very different than the stereotype
about your generation, And that's that's a healthy discussion. But
in my research on diversity, the more diversity in an organization,
(27:36):
the more likely their engagement scores are going to be lower,
and the reason for that is that most diverse this
as far as age is concerned, I didn't look at
it in terms of male, female, gender or anything like that.
But when you have a almost equal to vision of
(28:00):
the generations in the workplace, there's so many there's so
many differences that the reason there's reason for conflict, and
conflict happens, which reduces your engagement unless you're training people
how to deal with differences and how to deal with conflict.
(28:24):
And most companies don't don't do that, they don't train
on how to deal with differences. So there's been a
reaction against diversity in the United States partly because of this.
Some of these diversity initiatives that companies have undertaken have
(28:49):
failed because they didn't manage the diversity and train their
employees in how to deal with these differences, how to
understand each other. So it's very unfortunate that that's happened.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yeah, a good idea, but people need training. Yeah yeah, yeah.
What about gen z ers? How do you see them?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
They get a lot of flak for being you know,
basically flaky, I guess for lack of a better word.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
They want they don't want to work hard. That's what
you hear, right, Huh. They can quit at a moment's notice.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
I mean that's the stereotype, right, So what what do
you see?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Well, that's that's a big part of it. Yeah, they're
just seen as naive and oistered with their computers and
and awkward and social situations. Those are those are the
most common things that other generations see. But you know,
(29:56):
they need to be properly onboarded. They need to be
given instructions on how they are seen and feedback about it,
you know. But they're they're tremendous variation in each generation.
(30:17):
Not every not every generation Z individual is fits the stereotype.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I just love the question that you know, boomer comes
in and a millennial comes in, and you ask each other,
how do you not fit the stereotypes? That's such a
lovely question, really, I know, a wonderful conversation startup.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Absolutely, But do you want do you want to talk
about the reasons employees leave?
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah, you know. I analyzed the data of twenty plus
thousand exit interviews. I had nineteen thousand and then for
my next edition of the book, which came out in
twenty twelve, I did another one thousand surveys from my
(31:10):
website about people who had left companies responding why they left.
The process of leaving is very different. It's not just
the reason they leave, it's how they go about leaving.
You know that usually something happens that is a triggering
(31:35):
event that causes the person, whether it happens in the
first week on the job or six months into the job,
but something that happens that make them think that I'm
in the wrong place. But they don't necessarily quit at
that moment. They stay until they have decided to look
(31:58):
for another job, or they maybe they start looking but
very passively, and then finally they leave. So there's this
period of time between the shocking triggering event and the
decision to leave and then the actual leaving, and during
(32:20):
that time the employees can be re engaged. That's something
a lot of managers don't think about, because every manager
needs to be mindful of the fact that if you've
got six employees, there are probably three of them that
are thinking about leaving, and you don't want to be
(32:40):
shocked when they finally do. You want to engage them
in a discussion and find out why they might leave,
and that's how we get back to the re engagement discussion.
But I would say the number one reason employee employees
leave is the culture which and the culture is you know,
(33:01):
generated at the top. As we said, does this Does
my senior leader care about me as a person?
Speaker 1 (33:10):
You know?
Speaker 3 (33:11):
And when they see behavior that indicates that they don't,
that's when they begin to think about leaving the other
the other. Employee well being is another main reason. Can
I can I do my job but also leave when
(33:33):
I've got a personal situation or my my child has
a baseball game to go to? Do the benefits meet
my needs? If something were to happen to me, I
get sick, would the company have a compassionate attitude about
(33:53):
me taking work off? You know, there's a company that
you know provides a parking space that's more convenient to
people who are going through chemotherapy, for example, for cancer,
things like that. So employee well being is one of
(34:14):
the top reasons right now. Do they are they compassionate
about allowing me time to do family things and raise
my children as opposed to demanding that I that I
take this phone call, you know on a Saturday night
(34:36):
and so forth. Career advancement is a big one. You know,
do which which of your people care most about advancing.
Most people want to advance, but some people want to
continue to do the job they have without having to
(34:58):
manage people. I once had a manager who wanted to
promote me into his position as a manager, which he
thought he was doing me a big favor, but it
wasn't what I wanted to do. And you know, we
talk about the golden rule, there's also the platinum rule,
(35:19):
which means, you know, doing unto others as they would
like to have be done unto you know, so you
assume everybody wants what you want, but that's not necessarily
the case. So understanding who of your people are most
(35:44):
focused on career advancement and promotions and so forth, that's
a big piece of it. So there are seven of
these reasons, and I would recommend managers read the book thoroughly,
(36:05):
absorb you know, what it means to have and have
differences among your team about which one is the most
important and and go from there.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Yeah, thank you for you know, giving us that in detail.
I'm sure it will help listeners as well. And yes,
people must read the book. I have gone through it,
and you've really listed it out very logically, and I'm
happy to see that some of it still holds true.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
You know, my co author, I wrote a book called
re Engage with a co author who is colleague of mine,
Mark Hurstfeldt, and he called me and he said, what
if we wrote a book where we took the seven
reasons employees lead and look through the other end of
(36:58):
the telescope from a standpoint of the job seeker. And
that's what we did. We wrote a book that we
have released just in the last year called Don't take
that job Till you read this book. And basically the
idea is for employees to look at the seven reasons
(37:18):
employees leave in general and to think about which one
is most important to them, and to use it as
a lens for looking at their next employer, and to
ask the right questions as they research the organization before
going to work there, and to ask the right questions
(37:41):
and job interviews, and preferably before you talk not just
to your future manager, but to your future teammates and
ask the manager, could I meet some of the people
I would be working with, because chances are they're going
to give you a more honest, fuller picture of what
(38:05):
it's like to work there.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
And you know, going back to your book re Engaged, right,
that's you said that even between becoming disengaged and actually quitting,
companies can re engage. So I just want to mention
that that's your book, right, how engage, how it has
best places to work inspire extra effort and extraordinary times.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
We have an organization called Quantum Workplace, who was affiliated
with my former employer, and they the engagement survey I
created for that company, right Management was incorporated at Quantum
(38:49):
Research and used as the best place to work competition.
We had forty four business journals and cities around the
United States, and each year, those business journals do a
best place to Work competition and they give the survey
(39:11):
to any company who wants to be in that competition,
and every employee in that those companies completes that survey.
And the book that we wrote called Reengage, was based
on two point one million surveys that were completed in
(39:32):
those competitions. And the universal drivers of engagement were the
opposite of the seven hidden reasons employees leave. In other words,
there's almost a one to one correlation between the reasons
employees leave and the reasons they they stay. I mean,
(39:56):
just it's the mirror image.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
In other words, Yeah, which makes sense. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
And your last book you said, you know, don't take
this job till you take that job till you read
this book.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Right, That's what it is. Have I got it write?
Speaker 3 (40:10):
That's right? And there are nine lenses that we asked
the reader to look through before they take their next job.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
I want to know some of what are some of
these questions that you ask your network, you know, your
future peers in that company. What are some of these
questions that people should be asking Since you're also a
transition career coach, people come to you, So what are
the things that you know one should be asking for.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Well, we recommend that people get on LinkedIn and research
the histories of people on LinkedIn. You can look at
their career histories and you can network your way to
people who have worked for the company that you're interested in,
(41:00):
and you can get an introduction to those people and
you can ask them what it was like to work there. Now,
you chances are that if you if you talk to
enough people in your own network and you tell them
who your target companies are and show them a list
of your target companies. Most people will say, oh, I
(41:22):
know somebody there, or I know somebody who knows somebody there,
And you can network your way to people who have
lived and worked in that culture and can tell you
what it's like there. You can also go to glassdoor.
(41:43):
You know familiar with Glassdoor? Yeah, well you can find
out a lot just from employees' comments on Glassdoor. But
when you when you're in the interview, it pays to
asked to speak to people other than the manager. It
(42:03):
pays to ask the manager what is your what would
you consider your management style to be? Can you give
me an example of someone who's been promoted really fast
in your department? Can you give me an example of
(42:26):
how you what your practices are as far as employee
well being and benefits? There are a lot of very
pointed questions.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
But in India, managers have huge egos, so they don't
They have huge egos, so they're not going to like
being asked all these questions.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah, I know what you mean. I guess that's true
here as well. So you have to ask it in
the in the right.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Way, Yeah, the smart way, And and.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
You you have to know when too many questions is enough.
You know, if you ask too many questions they you
can get a negative reaction.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah, but I think the LinkedIn idea is a great one.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
You reach out and connect with past employees and ask
them about the culture.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Yeah, there's a hunter. There's a premium version of LinkedIn
that that costs a little more, but you can do
so much more with it. You can. You can find
secondary and tertiary you know, referrals that way. So and
(43:48):
reading your local business journal it helps quite a bit
as well.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
So basically we should be picking our next job right
and a lot of them are doing that. They're saying that,
you know, instead of like we are rejecting companies now
if we you know, if it doesn't take all the
right boxes.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
So that's happening.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
You mentioned it in one of your interviews, and that's
actually very true.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Yeah, I think, you know, part of my mission in
life is to put more pressure on companies to be
better places to work. And if individual come, individual people
do enough of that, you know, and start you know,
(44:37):
rejecting companies based on their reputations, I think that could
have an effect.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, absolutely, Lee, would you like to add anything. I
think we've taken a lot of your time already. Would
you like to add anything or any message for employees
and employers maybe?
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Well. I think the big message here is to communicate more.
You know, ah, have more frequent discussions. Yeah, ask for
more time. If you're an employee and you're not getting
enough feedback, ask for more feedback. People get intimidated by
(45:20):
by the manager, and uh, don't don't use the power
that should be theirs. So win in doubt over communicate.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
That's a great one, and don't lose the power. Thank
you so much, Lee for doing this.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
That was my pleasure.
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