Even in the 21st century, organizations are far from being those efficiency machines where offers and demands fit together perfectly, and the same is true in the internal environment of companies: the needs of workers and what senior positions can offer are not always found to generate a solution that benefits all parties.

Where this is most noticeable is in the frequency with which workers quit.

Why do some good employees end up leaving companies?

It is clear that there are many possible reasons why employees leave work in large numbers, but the main reasons, leaving aside causes external to the organization, can be summarized as follows.

1. The absurd contradictions

Often, conflicts and communication failures at the top of a company’s organizational chart mean that employees are receiving contradictory orders with some frequency.

This can easily happen when one or more team coordinators take too much for granted about the knowledge and intentions of other managers at the same level of the hierarchy, or when they are not clear about their own competencies and unknowingly interfere with the tasks of others by giving orders that they should not be giving.

Employees see these contradictions as a source of instability that, in addition to making their job a less pleasant experience, could at some point turn into a dismissal due to a superior.

2. Offenses against meritocracy

Promoting or increasing the salary of the wrong people not only tends to make the productivity of the company suffer more, but also generates a bad organizational climate in which everyone assumes that the efforts made do not have to be rewarded .

Internalizing this logic means that employees with lower expectations about their possible promotion in the company tend to perform just enough to achieve the minimum objectives required of them, while those who are working in the company because of the possibility of promotion will look for other jobs.

3. Confusing the best employees with a patch

To think that the most productive and best trained employees can shoulder their responsibilities and those of the part of the staff that is unable to perform what is necessary (often, high and medium positions) is to speculate on their performance and to displace into the future problems that accumulate over time.

If this is done, not only will the appearance of Burnout Syndrome be encouraged in these “exemplary” employees, but also problems that exist beyond their work will be displaced towards it . When these workers resign, not only will there be a void in their position, but the ineffectiveness of many other people will be totally exposed.

4. Habitation to the spirit of sacrifice

There are some employees who, without being asked, perform better than expected . Normally this is appreciated by their superiors, but it is possible that with the passage of time this kind of sacrifice is taken as normal and that, the month in which the employee works justly, the reproaches and recriminations for working less appear. This is a totally toxic practice and typical of exploitative situations, the employees know this, so it will not be long before they disappear from the company.

If you want to guarantee this kind of extra effort, you have to stop being extra. I mean, give something back.

5. The intrusions in the private life

Having an informal and friendly relationship with employees is not a bad thing in itself, but nobody likes to be forced to be friends with their boss . Insisting too much on taking the nature of the relationship beyond the workplace can be seen as intrusive and, if very intense and insistent, as a way of manipulating employees.

6. Lies

Lies are not just a sign of disrespect for the interlocutor. Everything that happens in an organization is based on the existence of agreements. If a superior clearly fails to keep his word, even on an apparently insignificant subject, about what is being done in the company or what is going to be done in the future, this can be interpreted as a sign of threat.

Workers will interpret that their superiors only stop lying where the law obliges them to do so and therefore they can be swindled while their labour force is stolen.

7. The impossibility of learning

It is true that not all employee profiles seek to learn in an organization, but depriving those who do want to develop their training of this possibility is usually fatal . Very few of these people are willing to stay in a company in exchange for a salary and a few lines on their curriculum: they need to feel that they are advancing through a learning curve.

8. The lack of bottom-up communication

Companies in which workers cannot come into contact with the top positions in the organisation, or which can only do so when the latter decide, know that there is very little chance of their demands and needs being met by the organisation, as they are not even heard in the first place. Therefore, they will be pessimistic about their future in the organization, and will look for other jobs .