Aji Issac Mathew

I am continuing with my post on “why people leave companies?“. One of the factor (as pointed by few) can be greener fields (in terms of monetary gains). Let’s put a thought on who all leave for greener fields?

1. The first placement: This is applicable to all people but mainly for B-school placement days. People make the decision on the basis of money, as it is an easy way of judging companies from outside. (Cup Vs Coffee – The presentation does matter for first impression). We generally expect good coffee inside good cup (expecting better culture and management with better payments).
2. Dissatisfied employee: When a member of your team is not satisfied he starts comparing his fields with the existing market. Most of us do not do an analysis about our dissatisfaction. We generally blames our salary for it. Salary is certainly the most visible factor due to its quantitative factor. We can calculate the increase in salary at a visible surface but satisfaction improvement can only be hoped for.
3. Creative and smart crowd: If the company pays same amount to an average and a smarter guy, either the smarter will become average or smarter will leave. The incentive structure based on performance is very important (and very difficult to achieve). Smart guys wants to progress faster and the company culture should support that. Companies needs to work out a plan to separate men from boys.
4. At various career disconnected nodes There can be situations when current company may not be able to give you deserved growth due to other limitations forcing you to leave.

There can be other reasons (which I will be covering in my next post after “making a silicon valley inside your company”) but I have covered only about people leaving the company for greener fields. Let me explain why a fresher (initial phase of career, may be first 5 years) should not consider money (salary) as a deciding factor while leaving a company. Let me put a short story and explain it.

I went to the woods with God asking the same question “God, I am not earning enough. Look at my friends they are earning so much. I think I am not worth it”.

“Look around”, God said. “Do you see the fern and the bamboo?” “Yes”, I replied.

“When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light.I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth. Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. He said.

“In year three there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. In year four, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed . I would not quit.” He said.

“Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant…But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle.”

He said to me. “Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots?”

If you can survive (I repeat survive) then first few years of your career should be worked out for growing roots and building muscles. You should look for challenges and learning environment and money will follow you soon. In my words “If you follow money for first few years it will become a habit and you will always run after small money. Money will run after a well rooted man so try and grow roots for those heights”. Also remember that you can earn money even after 10 years but you can’t grow roots after 10 years.

Purpose of this post
Neither good companies can survive without good people nor good people without good companies. I have learned few things from my experience and here I put down in bulleted format :-

1. Mentors for freshers: Many a time freshers have superficial expectations from companies and are not sure of their career. They keep comparing the salaries (even now we have products in India for pay comparisons). A good mentor can help a fresher understand the value of first few years and provide a good working culture. We have always tried to do that and in my next post “creating silicon valley inside your company” I will be explaining the methods. Companies should provide good mentors for freshers.
2. Learning environment: Companies should provide a good learning environment. The teams should be a proper mix of experienced and new comers with proper diversification in culture and gender. At the end of the month with targets and sales for a person companies should analyze the learning curve for each employee. Companies should believe in creating smart workers than only creating works and sales.
3. Analysis before leaving the company: If ever you leave the company make sure you have done a collective analysis with the HR department to make sure you are on the right path.

Switching companies are good for both the parties as companies can get fresh ideas through new employees and the employees gets a new culture to work in. But remember that life is not only about companies, jobs and money, it has more dimensions to it. Keep your values very high (as high as possible). Before leaving the company do following things

• Sit with HR dept and explain them your problem as bold as possible. Leaving a company is not a crime so be humble and explain the problems boldly.
• Allow some time to the HR dept and team to help you.

Click on the above link to read the scanned document. Hope you find it interesting. Thanks to our HR manager for forwarding it.

Expect this post to be long and very long. People are the most important part of your organization. An entrepreneur can test the company’s success by measuring the cumulative experience and creative talent available in the company. First year (for fresher it can be 2 to 3 years) with the company is learning phase where you add industrial knowledge and existing competition into your thought process. It will take time to understand the customer need, the company architecture, the technology used, the products available and the overall USP of the company. It is always good to build on the existing strength and new people need to understand the existing strength and add it to their thought dimensions. In short people are the key. At the end of every 6 months an entrepreneur should perform this test and if there is no significant improvement with Human Resource then the processes needs to be changed urgently. THIS SHOULD BE GIVEN THE HIGHEST PRIORITY. Also entrepreneurs (companies) need to set targets for building people. Sales will happen if people are there. Company will innovate if creative people stay. Jack Welch of GE once said, “A company’s value lies between the ears of its employees”.

Every company goes through this problem of losing good and bad people. Bad people leaving the company is good but in my opinion a person who had worked for more than 1 year with you can’t be bad. If they were bad why were they tolerated for one year they should have been fired earlier. Good people can lose the motivation down the line and noone but company (the people responsible) should take the blame. There can be various reasons but certainly it is not easy to find and solve but here are some of thoughts from respected company creators (I got these articles through mail group and have no proof about the author of the article). I will put my thoughts in next post as a continuation of this post.

Some reasons why people leave companies

1. Immediate boss is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he ‘s the reason why people leave. says Aziz Premji
2. For greener grass says Dr. Gopalkrishnan, Chairman TATA Sons.
3. Unhappiness in a workplace says Dr. Gopalkrishnan, Chairman TATA Sons.

Azim Premji, Wipro

Every company faces the problem of people leaving the company for better pay or profile. Early this year, Arun, a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer. He had heard a lot about the CEO. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office,and the very best technology,even a canteen that served superb food. Twice Arun was sent abroad for training. “My learning curve is the sharpest it’s ever been,” he said soon after he joined.

Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Arun walked out of the job. Why did this talented employee leave ? Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away.

The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called “First Break All The Rules”. It came up with this surprising finding:

If you’re losing good people, look to their immediate boss. Immediate boss is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he ‘s the reason why people leave. When people leave they take knowledge, experience and contacts with them, straight to the competition. “People leave managers not companies,” write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. Mostly manager drives people away?

HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has been planted. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he looks for another job.

When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information. Dev says: “If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don ‘t have your heart and soul in the job.”

Different managers can stress out employees in different ways – by being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit – often over a trivial issue.

Talented men leave. Dead wood doesn’t.

I will not putting my thoughts now but after putting another excerpt by Dr.Gopalkrishnan,Chairman TataSons. According to him people leave for a greener field or due to job dissatisfaction.

Mr.Gopalakrishnan succeeds Mr.Ratan Tata as Chairman of Tata Sons Ltd., the holding company for many of the Tata Bluechips like Tata Steel, Tata Motors,Tata Power, Tata Chemicals, Voltas, etc., Possibly he is the first non-Tata person to head the Tata Empire. The below article is really interesting !

The grass isn’t always greener on the other side !!

Move from one job to another, but only for the right reasons. It’s yet another day at office. As I logged on to the marketing and advertising sites for the latest updates, as usual, I found the headlines dominated by ‘who’s moving from one company to another after a short stint’, and I wondered, why are so many people leaving one job for another? Is it passe now to work with just one company for a sufficiently long period?

Whenever I ask this question to people who leave a company, the answers I get are: “Oh, I am getting a 200% hike in salary”; “Well, I am jumping three levels in my designation”; “Well, they are going to send me abroad in six months”.

Then, I look around at all the people who are considered successful today and who have reached the top – be it a media agency, an advertising agency or a company. I find that most of these people are the ones who have stuck to the company, ground their heels and worked their way to the top. And, as I look around for people who changed their jobs constantly, I find they have stagnated at some level, in obscurity!

In this absolutely ruthless, dynamic and competitive environment, there are still no short-cuts to success or to making money. The only thing that continues to pay, as earlier, is loyalty and hard work. Yes, it pays!

Sometimes, immediately, sometimes after a lot of time. But, it does pay.

Does this mean that one should stick to an organisation and wait for that golden moment? Of course not. After a long stint, there always comes a time for moving in most organisations, but it is important to move for the right reasons, rather than superficial ones, like money, designation or an overseas trip.

Remember, no company recruits for charity.

More often than not, when you are offered an unseemly hike in salary or designation that is disproportionate to what that company offers it current employees, there is always an unseen bait attached.

The result? You will, in the long-term, have reached exactly the same levels or maybe lower levels than what you would have in your current company.

A lot of people leave an organisation because they are “unhappy”. What is this so-called-unhappiness? I have been working for donkey’s years and there has never been a day when I am not unhappy about something in my work environment-boss, rude colleague, fussy clients etc.

Unhappiness in a workplace, to a large extent, is transient.

If you look hard enough, there is always something to be unhappy about. But, more importantly, do I come to work to be “happy” in the truest sense? If I think hard, the answer is “No”.

Happiness is something you find with family, friends, may be a close circle of colleagues who have become friends.

What you come to work for is to earn, build a reputation, satisfy your ambitions, be appreciated for your work ethics, face challenges and get the job done.

So, the next time you are tempted to move, ask yourself why are you moving and what are you moving into?

Some questions are:

• Am I ready and capable of handling the new responsibility? If yes, what could be the possible reasons my current company has not offered me the same responsibility?
• Who are the people who currently handle this responsibility in the current and new company? Am I as good as the best among them?
• As the new job offer has a different profile, why have I not given the current company the option to offer me this profile?
• Why is the new company offering me the job? Do they want me for my skills, or is there an ulterior motive?

An honest answer to these will eventually decide where you go in your career- to the top of the pile in the long term (at the cost of short-term blips) or to become another average employee who gets lost with time in the wilderness?

“DESERVE BEFORE YOU DESIRE” – Dr. Gopalkrishnan, Chairman TATA Sons.

These were some thoughts by some experienced gurus who have experienced the wind. I have an appointment with Mr Teeth Doc (my Dentist) and I will continue once I am back (expect next post). Do put your thoughts that why do you think people leave companies?

Other related post

• Steve Jobs at Stanford.
• Indra Nooyi at B-School Graduation.