Keep in mind that there will always be a delay between when you've unalterably lost someone good and when that person actually leaves the company. Financial, social, mental, and professional inertia is a real thing. And a job is in many ways a relationship like a romantic relationship, like a marriage.
When is a marriage irretrievably broken? If you take the moment that the divorce actually happened and you rewind say, 1 day, it seems unlikely that you could get the couple to reconcile then if they were irreconcilable just the day after. And in all likelihood you'd have to go back years to get to a point where reconciliation would be possible, where one or the other of them had not made the decision in their heart, perhaps without even consciously being aware of it, that the relationship was over and on a denouement to eventual permanent separation.
The same dynamics apply to employment. If you rewind the clock one day or one year from the point of separation you probably cannot fundamentally change the glide slope that results in an exit from the company. And like marriage and divorce the "reasons" are probably not so simple, not down to one solitary action or cause. More likely it's due to an incompatibility of life goals, lack of mutual respect, failure to communicate openly with one another, and problems with basic chemistry.
I have seen employees (good, high-caliber talent) who are immensely passionate about their job and they keep throwing themselves into the maw of rejection that their local corporate culture exudes. They keep banging away trying to make things better. Nine times out of ten they get rejected outright, and the 10th time they get dragged over broken glass getting one little change made. That sort of thing wears on a person just as surely as fighting with a spouse drags on a person. And one day things just start to click a little differently and they see a future where they are no longer working at that company, and they don't hate the idea.
I agree with you in principle. But an employment isn't the same as a relationship with a Person.
Life in most large corporates starts with heightened expectation in the first few weeks/days and from there on its a constant decline and a complete mismatch in what the person expected and what the actual reality is.
My experiences have been horrible, I've seen a never ending timeline of nepotism, biased behaviors and partiality in large companies. Endless bureaucracy, politics and socialist style of 'one works, everyone else leeches on him' style of working very common.
Its this bitter fact is what causes the maximum attrition of good people from the company and not the inevitable boredom that happens with historical baggage.
That explains IMHO the average cycle of 5 years per employer.
Year one: Your happy that everything is new, you learn a lot and are releaved to have quit your old job.
Year two: You start to see the cracks, but you are still motivated and full of energy, right? You try to fix it and still happy.
Year three:You can't fix everything and you start to hit walls. You realize things aren't actually that different from before but still different. you hang on.
Year four: After a possible internal change you finally realize that it's just more of the same in a different colour, you start to think about another change.
Year five:the same shit as before, without a perspective, at least non you like, you find something else. The cycle starts again.
Good people management as discribed in the article and the linked articles can mitigate this. Really good companies may add a cpuple of years, perfect ones may retain you forever if they exist at all. But sooner or later you will get something different, not necessarily better. Sad thing is that alo tof companies, and I don't mean your direct boss here but companies in general, do near to nothing about it. The end result being that the whole system is nearing the absolute average, the talents either being bosses (if they adapt, pgs essay on popularity comes to my mind), burned out and disillusioned (pretty likely) or start-up founders (where possible and hopefully successfull).
I had to cut this a bit short since I was heading to bed at the time. A big reason why this is important is because this fundamental dynamic throws a huge wrench in the feedback loop for employers.
If employees were emotional and flighty it might be better. Something happens, and suddenly an employee quits. That gives the employer the time for a "baby, baby what's wrong? how can I make it right?" moment. In reality, there is no single one breaking point, it's a subtle and gradual process and the ultimate feedback sometimes comes as a surprise to the employer.
Just like in any relationship open communication and sensitivity is necessary. If you are a manager you have to always be on your toes. You have to wonder if the experiences that your team are going through right now are the sort that could harden their hearts to a degree that would drive them away from the company a few months or years down the road. If you don't realize such things, and you don't try to open a line of communication to get these subjects out in the open so they can be worked on or worked around then you're like the oblivious husband who doesn't notice his wife growing colder and more distant until you see her bags backed by the door.
Professional relationships are different from friendships and different from romantic relationships but a lot of the fundamentals are the same.
Many large companies exhibit stereotypically abusive behavior. They take and take and take and they don't typically back off until they hit a brick wall. But as mentioned above by then it's already too late. If you've ever wondered why the top talent seems to always evaporate out of big, soulless companies and over to smaller startups, well, this is precisely why. Even if the big, soulless companies had it in their hearts to do whatever it took to retain top talent the only thing that's really at their disposal is money, everything else they wield with too much insensitivity to actually matter to an employee's decision to stay or go.
Edit: also, big companies tend to do silly things like shuffle people around between managers as if the relationships between people and their managers were interchangeable and inconsequential.
Quite eloquent and perceptive of you. My parents are going through a divorce, and in many ways I have had this happen at jobs as well. I feel like this is on point.
Comments
Keep in mind that there will always be a delay between when you've unalterably lost someone good and when that person actually leaves the company. Financial, social, mental, and professional inertia is a real thing. And a job is in many ways a relationship like a romantic relationship, like a marriage.
When is a marriage irretrievably broken? If you take the moment that the divorce actually happened and you rewind say, 1 day, it seems unlikely that you could get the couple to reconcile then if they were irreconcilable just the day after. And in all likelihood you'd have to go back years to get to a point where reconciliation would be possible, where one or the other of them had not made the decision in their heart, perhaps without even consciously being aware of it, that the relationship was over and on a denouement to eventual permanent separation.
The same dynamics apply to employment. If you rewind the clock one day or one year from the point of separation you probably cannot fundamentally change the glide slope that results in an exit from the company. And like marriage and divorce the "reasons" are probably not so simple, not down to one solitary action or cause. More likely it's due to an incompatibility of life goals, lack of mutual respect, failure to communicate openly with one another, and problems with basic chemistry.
I have seen employees (good, high-caliber talent) who are immensely passionate about their job and they keep throwing themselves into the maw of rejection that their local corporate culture exudes. They keep banging away trying to make things better. Nine times out of ten they get rejected outright, and the 10th time they get dragged over broken glass getting one little change made. That sort of thing wears on a person just as surely as fighting with a spouse drags on a person. And one day things just start to click a little differently and they see a future where they are no longer working at that company, and they don't hate the idea.
I agree with you in principle. But an employment isn't the same as a relationship with a Person.
Life in most large corporates starts with heightened expectation in the first few weeks/days and from there on its a constant decline and a complete mismatch in what the person expected and what the actual reality is.
My experiences have been horrible, I've seen a never ending timeline of nepotism, biased behaviors and partiality in large companies. Endless bureaucracy, politics and socialist style of 'one works, everyone else leeches on him' style of working very common.
Its this bitter fact is what causes the maximum attrition of good people from the company and not the inevitable boredom that happens with historical baggage.
That explains IMHO the average cycle of 5 years per employer. Year one: Your happy that everything is new, you learn a lot and are releaved to have quit your old job. Year two: You start to see the cracks, but you are still motivated and full of energy, right? You try to fix it and still happy. Year three:You can't fix everything and you start to hit walls. You realize things aren't actually that different from before but still different. you hang on. Year four: After a possible internal change you finally realize that it's just more of the same in a different colour, you start to think about another change. Year five:the same shit as before, without a perspective, at least non you like, you find something else. The cycle starts again.
Good people management as discribed in the article and the linked articles can mitigate this. Really good companies may add a cpuple of years, perfect ones may retain you forever if they exist at all. But sooner or later you will get something different, not necessarily better. Sad thing is that alo tof companies, and I don't mean your direct boss here but companies in general, do near to nothing about it. The end result being that the whole system is nearing the absolute average, the talents either being bosses (if they adapt, pgs essay on popularity comes to my mind), burned out and disillusioned (pretty likely) or start-up founders (where possible and hopefully successfull).
I had to cut this a bit short since I was heading to bed at the time. A big reason why this is important is because this fundamental dynamic throws a huge wrench in the feedback loop for employers.
If employees were emotional and flighty it might be better. Something happens, and suddenly an employee quits. That gives the employer the time for a "baby, baby what's wrong? how can I make it right?" moment. In reality, there is no single one breaking point, it's a subtle and gradual process and the ultimate feedback sometimes comes as a surprise to the employer.
Just like in any relationship open communication and sensitivity is necessary. If you are a manager you have to always be on your toes. You have to wonder if the experiences that your team are going through right now are the sort that could harden their hearts to a degree that would drive them away from the company a few months or years down the road. If you don't realize such things, and you don't try to open a line of communication to get these subjects out in the open so they can be worked on or worked around then you're like the oblivious husband who doesn't notice his wife growing colder and more distant until you see her bags backed by the door.
Professional relationships are different from friendships and different from romantic relationships but a lot of the fundamentals are the same.
Many large companies exhibit stereotypically abusive behavior. They take and take and take and they don't typically back off until they hit a brick wall. But as mentioned above by then it's already too late. If you've ever wondered why the top talent seems to always evaporate out of big, soulless companies and over to smaller startups, well, this is precisely why. Even if the big, soulless companies had it in their hearts to do whatever it took to retain top talent the only thing that's really at their disposal is money, everything else they wield with too much insensitivity to actually matter to an employee's decision to stay or go.
Edit: also, big companies tend to do silly things like shuffle people around between managers as if the relationships between people and their managers were interchangeable and inconsequential.
Quite eloquent and perceptive of you. My parents are going through a divorce, and in many ways I have had this happen at jobs as well. I feel like this is on point.