Have you gone through a mass exodus at work or managed a whole team that quit on you? Can you really build and improve your team if you are always having to replace members who are leaving? What causes mass quitting at the workplace? Furthermore, is high employee turnover a reflection on management?
High employee turnover can not only be demoralizing, but it can get expensive quickly.
Clearly, the reasons for someone leaving will always vary depending on the specific company, industry and team. However, it’s safe to assume that whatever issue caused someone to want to quit or to start looking for another job is being experienced by others on your team. Any departure, let alone a mass departure, should be a wake up call.
Furthermore, if your company is struggling to adapt to a remote-first or distributed model, you should take into account the Five Levels of Autonomy, and the three things that matter when motivating people: mastery, purpose, and autonomy. The challenge is finding what your team members value and are passionate about – and match their talent and what they care about to the company’s goals.
That said, sometimes a high turnover rate or mass exodus is inevitable because of the nature of your company, size of the business and lack of upward opportunities.
I work for a small-ish company in a tech city. The culture is great, everyone is really friendly, work is interesting and rarely too stressful… but because of the size of my team and the scope of the business there’s only so much I can grow and progress, and I know that this creates a sort of expiration date.”
– @springerspaniel
Now, what should you do if you’re an employee and there is a mass exodus at your company? Well, it might be an opportunity to advance your career!