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One reason so many are quitting: We want control over our lives again

More about the impact of toxic cultures:


This is the biggest reason people quit—and it’s 10 times more important than pay​


Business leaders spent the bulk of 2021 managing record turnover during what’s become known as the Great Resignation, with a big focus on people quitting for higher-paying jobs, better working conditions and attractive benefits. But according to one analysis published in the MIT Sloan Management Review, researchers say record turnover is actually being driven by something a lot harder to fix: a toxic work culture.

From the data — which considered turnover from April to September 2021, Glassdoor reviews from the last few years (including before the pandemic) and 172 culture metrics at roughly 600 companies — researchers found toxic work culture to be the biggest factor that led people to quit, and 10 times more important than pay in predicting turnover.

From those reviews, the most common ways employees described toxic culture at their company were through a failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; unethical behavior or low integrity; abusive managers; and a cutthroat environment where they felt colleagues were actively undermining them.

What’s significant is that toxic workplace factors lead to a “stronger reaction” — quitting — more so than other bad work issues, says lead author and MIT senior lecturer Donald Sull. “People may grumble about their workplace being bureaucratic or feeling siloed, but they still don’t leave,” he tells CNBC Make It. But signs of toxic work culture are making people walk away.

Industries with the highest rates of attrition from the research are apparel retail (19%), management consulting (16%), internet (14%), enterprise software (13%) and a four-way tie across fast food, specialty retail, research hospitals, and hotels and leisure (which all saw 11% rates of attrition).

But employers within each industry also varied widely in their turnover rates. In aerospace and defense, for example, Boeing lost 6.2% of employees from April to September compared with SpaceX, which lost 21.2% of its people. Sull says those differences can indicate how much company leadership, not just what’s going on in an industry, plays a role in work culture and turnover.

Other leading predictors of turnover include job insecurity and reorganization, high levels of innovation (as in, companies that move so quickly that they burn out workers), failure to recognize employee performance, and poor response to Covid-19.

Failure to recognize performance could mean high performers don’t feel they’re being rewarded for their efforts, or they feel that low performance is being tolerated. Either way, Sull says this cause of turnover is preventable and especially damaging: “By failing to recognize high performance, not only are you losing people at higher rates, but you’re losing people who are highly valuable to the company.”

 
I'm signing my release papers in 3 hours. I had 17 1/2 years in but I'm looking forward to the challenge tbh.

There are a lot of factors at play. I would say my compensation was never an issue that's caused me to leave. The CAF (despite what people say) has pretty good compensation, especially for a Public Sector Job.

The other two you mentioned def played a part along with all the negativity and bad press we are currently experiencing.

When I realized that I was able to walk in to another industry, make roughly what I am making now with a lot more room for rapid upward mobility + cash out my existing pension contributions (making me independently wealthy) and provide a way better life for my family, the decision became a lot easier.
Good luck. Thank you for your service. :salute:
 
Biggest part of the lack of labour is the boomers retiring.

One thing this "Boomer" can say about retiring from the same organization you started with may be the most selfish reason of all.

There is a certain satisfaction in getting together with men you have known for 50 years ( come Sept. ).
We remind each other of when we were young.

Social media has been a convenient alternative during Covid, but it's not the same as breaking bread and enjoying beverages together.
 
We are seeing pers in our tech and transferable skills sections walking at an alarming rate. The nature of our technology and jobs have evolved from the "you don't have the skills to make it on the outside" mentality of yesteryear.

I have many IS Techs, ATIS Techs, heck even Sig Ops walking into IT-01 and 02 positions on experience alone, making a lot more than the CAF is ever willing to pay, for a heck of a lot less bullshit attached. I hear the Navy and Air Force are in similar states. You need people to perform at industry standard, yet aren't willing to compensate them or provide resources as such.

We either make the job something to want to come to, compensate accordingly, or we keep doing what we're doing and bleed the middle.
What's hilarious is we will be short staffed, go to grab a contractor to supplement the workload, and the contractor will then only be able to find people currently/recently with the CAF that have the required skillset.

If you can do the job you like for more money, less hours and less BS kind of a no brainer, and if that costs the CAF an extra 30-50% premium that's their problem.
 
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