Is your business losing employees to trade-offs?

Businesses are often willing to make risky trade-offs. To improve their bottom line, they often compromise employee satisfaction. Such behavior can be harmful to the company’s brand image, particularly at the managerial level. Examples of this include delaying employee invoice payments quarter after quarter, pressuring employees to accept things as they are (read broken chairs, faulty electronics equipment, etc.), micro-management, and emphasizing in team meetings that sales is a 24/7 job! These practices are not just unfair but borderline unethical, at best!

I once worked with a project manager who asked one of the employees to apply for sick leave in advance (yes, you've read it right) to ensure business continuity. As expected, this led to the employee leaving the company within a few months. Ironically, one of the values stated on the company’s website was- certainty!

Companies with high employee attrition rates, particularly in the service sector, need to avoid such compromises. While these trade-offs can be difficult to identify, efforts must be made to recognize and reduce them. Exit interviews and employee feedback on websites like Glassdoor can be invaluable in identifying these trends. Business units with attrition rates higher than the industry average need to be especially watchful in identifying these compromise trends. It becomes even more important in the current labor market scenario.

Do you think your business is making such trade-offs?