Last year the human resources software company, BambooHR, surveyed more than 1,000 full-time workers in the U.S. to determine the top reasons employees quit their jobs. We’ve all heard the cliched saying that employees don’t quit their jobs – they quit their supervisors, which is the top reason, but there are four other reasons that employers may want to know:
- Supervisors who don’t empower the employee or who make the employee feel they are not trusted.
- Being asked to work on vacation or after hours – especially checking emails or voicemails.
- Supervisors who blame employees when things go wrong.
- No flexibility in scheduling, especially when employees need to take care of family responsibilities.
- Co-workers who make the workplace intolerable.
One of the surprises here for me was the lack of flexibility and lack of family friendly policies. Work flexibility and work-life balance have been buzz words for at least 20-years, yet the majority of companies appear to be resistant to embracing these concepts or giving them more than lip service. The influx of the generation known as millennials may finally be what is needed to shift organizations toward flexibility.