Free Essay

Why Employee's Quit?

In:

Submitted By Katrina122488
Words 4547
Pages 19
Why Google Employees Quit
In 2008 Google HR set up a private Google Group to ask former employees why they left the company. We’ve been forwarded what appears to be authentic posts to the thread by a number of ex-Googlers, which we reprint below minus identifying information other than their first names.
The thread shows a brutal honesty about what it’s like to work at Google, at least from the point of view of employees who were unhappy enough to resign. Top amongst the complaints is low pay relative to what they could earn elsewhere, and disappearing fringe benefits seemed to elevate the concern. Other popular gripes – too much bureaucracy, poor management, poor mentoring, and a hiring process that took months.
A few of the posts are more positive, and frankly there isn’t a whole lot here that you don’t see in other big companies.
One message stands out though in most of the posts – employees thought they were entering the promised land when they joined Google, and most of them were disappointed. Some of them wondered if it meant they were somehow lacking. One person sums it all up nicely:
Those of us who failed to thrive at Google are faced with some pretty serious questions about ourselves. Just seeing that other people ran into the same issues is a huge relief. Google is supposed to be some kind of Nirvana, so if you can’t be happy there how will you ever be happy? It’s supposed to be the ultimate font of technical resources, so if you can’t be productive there how will you ever be productive?
The full thread is below.
From: Stephen
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 13:25:07 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Wed, May 28 2008 2:25 pm
Subject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.
Actually, I hit the Send button on this before I intended to.
I left Microsoft to work for Google in 2005. I stayed 10 months. I
was demoralized. I shouldn’t have ever taken that job. I was
disenchanted the whole time, and yes, like you, my regret over the
poor bargain I’d made affected my performance.
As I was saying. Google actually celebrates its hiring process, as if
its ruthless inefficiency and interminable duration were a sure proof
of thoroughness, a badge of honor. Perhaps it is thorough. But I
would be willing to wager that Microsoft’s hiring process, which takes
a fraction of the time, does not result in a lower-skilled workforce
or result in a higher rate of attrition. And let me say this: if
Larry Page is still reviewing resumes, shareholders should organize a
rebellion. That is a scandalous waste of time for someone at that
level, and the fact that it’s “quirky” is no mitigation.
I was, like you, offered a considerable pay cut to go to work at
Google. The relocation package was lame. So were the benefits. (I
had worked at Microsoft. Microsoft was self-insured, so there were no
co-pays.)
In one TGIF in Kirkland, an employee informed Eric Schmidt that
Microsoft’s benefits package was richer. He announced himself
genuinely surprised, which genuinely surprised me. Schmidt, in the
presence of witnesses, promised to bring the benefits to a par. He
consulted HR, and HR informed him that it’d cost Google 22 million a
year to do that. So he abandoned the promise and fell back on his
tired, familiar standby (“People don’t work at Google for the money.
They work at Google because they want to change the world!”). A
statement that always seemed to me a little Louis XIV coming from a
billionaire.
I still can’t recall all the moralizing postures without a shudder of
disgust.
From: Ben
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 14:43:09 -0700
Local: Wed, May 28 2008 3:43 pm
Subject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.
Stephen wrote:
> He
> consulted HR, and HR informed him that it’d cost Google 22 million a
> year to do that. So he abandoned the promise and fell back on his
> tired, familiar standby (“People don’t work at Google for the money.
> They work at Google because they want to change the world!”). A
> statement that always seemed to me a little Louis XIV coming from a
> billionaire.
I ran into a similar irritation while at Google, actually – during that
time when the minikitchens were being stripped heavily. I heard that one
of the reasons was cost – I remember figures mentioned like “thousands
of dollars per day” – and it just didn’t jive well with me.
I mean, look at the profit numbers. Google’s net income for 2006, when I
left, was 3 billion. 22 million a year? Less than 1% of their *profit*.
“Thousands of dollars a day”? Even if it’s ten thousand, that’s still
well under 1%.
Reduce profit by 2% to make your employees much happier . . . well, I
know what I’d choose. In some ways it seemed like Google was getting
increasingly pennywise/poundfoolish, and that just seemed like a dubious
situation.
(Although, to Google’s credit, they opened up a new cafe that solved
many of my food-related issues . . . after I left. Sigh.)
-Ben
From: Ted
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 17:39:06 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Wed, May 28 2008 6:39 pm
Subject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.
Sounds familiar (I was at Kirkland too.)
Google took longer than any company I ever worked for to get thru the
hiring process (approx 5 months from resume to job start.)
The interview process was very mixed: They had me slated as a Windows
Developer for some reason, tho everyone on my interview loop wondered
why. I flubbed my first coding pretty bad but after that it was clear
that no-one on my interview loop had enough experience or knowledge to
level me. On the other hand they figured that out and scheduled a
follow on interview with the head of the Kirkland office who asked
reasonable and pertinent questions.
Unlike the previous posters, I was happy with my salary and (for some
reason I can’t articulate) I kept my own private medical insurance…
Also I was surprised that Google seemed to be proud that they didn’t
communicate from one interviewer to the next: at Microsoft it was a
good opportunity to find more appropriate interviewers, etc. if a
person seemed misslated. Oh well, I thought my interview and hiring
process was an anomaly.
From: Laurent
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 08:10:08 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Thurs, May 29 2008 9:10 am
Subject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.
I also left Google after only 5 months.
As soon as I got inside, I had the feeling of being swallowed by a
giant borg
Really, I felt like I didn’t exist, watching people buzzing around
with laptops.
I did however meet with Larry and Sergey during a product review
meeting, and have only good things to say about these 2 guys.
Regarding compensation, I did have to negotiate quite a bit to get on
par with what I earned before.
For options however, I didn’t get much (something like 180 options and
330 gsu).
What was strange with me at Google was: while outside, I had all these
big ideas I could do if I ever worked there.
Once inside, you have 18,000 (at the time, Feb 2008) other googlers
thinking the same things.
I think it’s a good move for them to have App Engine: they won’t need
to hire that many people anymore, or buy small garage-guys because
now developers will be able to develop over the Google OS for free for
Google
One last thing: Google also thinks inside a box (the browser). I felt
this a lot, and was another reason I left. (too constrained)
It’s no surprise that they push to extend what the browser can do.
(Gears, Earth plugin)
Cheers.
From: Shelby
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 10:26:39 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Thurs, May 29 2008 11:26 am
Subject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.
I had an equally ridiculous hiring process – although mine actually
seemed normal (by Google standards) until the result. “And let me
say this: if Larry Page is still reviewing resumes, shareholders
should organize a rebellion. That is a scandalous waste of time for someone at that
level, and the fact that it’s “quirky” is no mitigation. ” – this
couldn’t be more true.
My experience actually in Aug. 2004 when I was interviewing for a
sales position in the Seattle office was the typical 13+ interviews,
including a day trip to MV where I was told that someone would take me
to lunch and instead she took me in a conf. room and interviewed me.
So I ended up not eating at all that day until I returned to the
airport at 4pm. However, I passed my interviews with flying colors
and was surprised 3 weeks later when I still hadn’t heard from my
recruiter about the results of the hiring committee meeting. Finally
he called to tell me that I was rejected because I was currently
working as a Flight Attendant. A job I had started 4 months prior
because it was a great opportunity to move into their management group
but then the airlines started downsizing management and so I applied
for the Google Travel Sales role instead. However, apparently the
elitist hiring committee members believed that FA’s are stupid and
there was no way they would be able to work at Google. Lucky for me
the recruiter agreed it was incredibly sexist and fought with HR to
bring me on as a temp. Three months later they resubmitted me to the
committee and had me remove my former job – instead I mentioned that I
was “traveling” for four months and bingo! I got hired full time. 3+
years later I was promoted twice and named a Google Luminary! Good
think Larry is such an excellent judge of character.
I have to say though, that level of bureaucracy remained pretty much
the whole time I was at Google. I finally left after a lifestyle
change moved me to Austin and they re-nigged on an offer to move me
into the Travel Vertical role for which I was promised before the
move. It’s a real bummer because I loved my co-workers and there are
a ton of great people at Google. But the management has no power to
influence change because they are micromanaged by the Execs.
I’m very happy at my new company though – making twice as much and
enjoying the benefits of a start-up culture again.
From: issara
Date: Fri, 30 May 2008 08:50:45 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Fri, May 30 2008 9:50 am
Subject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.
I was hired to work in Google’s Singapore office. I found out very
quickly that Google International is not the same as Google-US. The
offered pay was way too low to survive in Singapore, so I left after I
got another job offer that I felt was better for me. I really do
believe that Google is doing some important work with humanitarian
mapping projects and digitizing libraries. But for me, I felt that
Google’s popular image did not match its actions in the work place,
and that some of the things they did were not very “Googly.”
Issara
From: “Greg
Date: Fri, 30 May 2008 20:29:18 -0400
Local: Fri, May 30 2008 6:29 pm
Subject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.
I wonder how much of a difference there is between
engineering/non-engineering and MV/non-MV, in addition to the
old-timer/non-old-timer split.
I started working at Google a while ago as an engineer when there was
only the Mountain View office. (If I recall correctly, the NY sales
office opened later that month.) Google certainly seemed like an
ideal place to work at the time, and if I wanted to be an engineer,
I’d probably still want to work there. But there were certainly
issues, even back then, and I believe they’ve mostly gotten worse as
the company has grown.
The hiring process:
Google’s hiring process tends to have a lot of false negatives. If I
had submitted my resume myself, rather than getting recommended by an
employee, I don’t know if I would have gotten in. My GPA was a 3.7,
and the cutoff (at least at one point in Google’s history) was 3.8 (I
went to a tough school, the 6th 4.0 GPA in its history just graduated
this year). I honestly don’t know if this cap is still there (I
suspect not) but this is just one way Google arbitrarily cut down on
the number of people interviewed.
After I had been working, I found out that I was lucky that one of the
members of my team hadn’t interviewed me. My C++ skills weren’t
really all that great, since I hadn’t used C++ in a couple of years,
and I would have totally failed if he had interviewed me. He told me
that he would have been wrong to do so, since I actually ended up
replacing him on the team and automating most of what he had been
doing by hand, so I hope that my example helped make at least one
interviewer a little more reasonable. But the old-timers certainly
felt like they had to have tough interviews, and in many cases “tough”
equated to things like trivia questions or brain teasers, neither of
which are completely relevant to what people were being interviewed
for.
The Google lifestyle:
Food at Mountain View in the early days was great. Things got a bit
crazy when Charlie was cooking in the same tiny kitchen that he had
cooked for 70 people in when there were something like 400 people
eating in the cafe, although the food quality didn’t go down nearly as
much as I would have expected it to. But this was just one of many
examples of overcrowding in the offices that happened over the years
at Google. (And honestly, keeping the cooks happy seemed like a good
idea to me…)
But along with the food came the Google lifestyle: if you were staying
for dinner, it better be because you were working afterwards. It was
frowned upon to leave right after dinner. I think a lot of people
spent quite a bit of time either just before or just after dinner
hanging out and not really being all that productive, which is nice
for the mostly 20-something crowd, but I can sympathize with the
people who have families that didn’t fit in. I had my own reasons for
not wanting to hang out at work, so I never really got that far into
the Google social scene. And my experience was that the people who
spent all their time at Google were the ones that ended up on the
sexier projects or in charge of things. (Admittedly, some of these
people were also workaholics, and I wasn’t willing to give up some of
my non-work social activities, but there seemed to be a bit of
favoritism going on as well.)
Engineers and everyone else:
Unlike most other engineers, I had a job that required me to talk to
people all over the company. I talked to the lawyers, marketing, PR,
product managers, executives, engineers… And because I started
early enough, I also knew quite a few people in sales. As far as
salary went, my offer was 35% higher than my next highest job offer,
so I think I lucked out there. That was certainly not the normal
situation, though. Over the years I talked to plenty of people about
what they thought about Google’s compensation… There’s a huge
discrepancy between engineers and non-engineers. Most of the adwords
support people I talked to complained a lot about their situation.
Not only were they generally overqualified for the jobs (given what
the work actually was, but Google has always prided itself on having
people with extra education) but they could fairly easily have gotten
higher-paying jobs elsewhere. The usual reason for sticking around
that I heard was that after a few years at Google, their resume would
look a lot better on the job market.
And that’s not counting the people who are contractors. I never
understood why all of the recruiters were contractors, given that
Google showed no signs of slowing down its hiring. All this meant was
that a lot of the recruiters had to spend a lot of time training new
recruiters, since they were replaced so frequently. (This, I think,
goes at least partway for explaining why the hiring process was
occasionally a bit slow.)
Management
My biggest pet peeve was the management, or lack thereof, at Google.
I went through many managers in my first few years. I ended up having
at least one manager during this time that was an unpopular manager,
and because of that, I was told many times over that I shouldn’t
bother trying to get a promotion. When I left, I had never been
re-slotted. This, in spite of the fact that my technical judgment was
respected enough that I occasionally delayed launches until their
logging systems were operating correctly. And in spite of the fact
that I essentially consulted to other technical groups. I could go on
about this for a while, but then I might actually sound like I was
bitter.
Remote offices
I worked in Mountain View for 3 years before moving to New York.
Around that time, I started traveling a lot: I had college alumni
activities in southern California, so I occasionally worked out of
Santa Monica, and my brother lived in Seattle, so I worked in Kirkland
a few times. The “Google experience” is substantially different
outside of Mountain View. And being outside of the Mountain View
culture bubble makes it that much harder to get taken seriously. I
honestly have no idea what it’s like to work for Google outside of the
US, but even when you’re only 3 time zones away, it’s sometimes hard
to get noticed by Mountain View.
This e-mail has gotten a lot longer than I really meant it to. But my
point is that there are plenty of good reasons people can have
negative impressions of working at Google. Just like there are plenty
of good reasons people have great experiences there.
–
Greg
From: Luqman
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 01:34:53 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Sun, Jun 1 2008 2:34 am
Subject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.
It looks like most of us have same story to tell….
My case resembles that of Bob ….
It took two months(lesser than others I guess) for my hiring process
to complete, and I made it clear that I had an offer from IBM in hand
which was paying me good … but I was offered the same salary as my
previous employer … which always kept me de-motivated throughout my
tenure. I joined the job due to company’s name and reputation as well
as I had the option to work in day shifts.
There was no proper mentoring for 6 months and within 9 months of my
tenure my manager was not happy with my performance, and mgmt always
stressed on “Putting some Extra Effort” – in other words “Spending
some extra hours” … this may not be the case at Google-MV but this
is what it is in India.
If you don’t put extra hours then you won’t get promoted, no promotion
means no salary hike.
I feel sad about my decision on choosing Google over IBM … Small
pay, No work, No Team spirit, No Hike in 12 months, No balance between
Family Life and work are few things which motivated my move out. I am
still jobless after 5 moths of leaving Google, but I am happy with my
decision(I feel like it is better be jobless than work for google as a
Field Tech).
Coming to the positive side, I enjoyed helping fellow googlers fixing
their PCs or Laptops and helping them with their queries. But Field
Techs have to do all the crap apart from some good work.
I like Logan’s example … good decision.
Cheers,
Luqman.
From: “Marc
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 09:22:03 +0200
Local: Sun, Jun 1 2008 1:22 am
Subject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.
I agree with Pam. I started working for Google in 2002 in Amsterdam to set
up the Dutch and Belgium Sales office and these years were the best of my
life!
I had to wait 9 months before they hired me, but it was definately worth is.
I had only three interviews then, but number three was Omid, so I might have
been lucky back then. But waiting for 9 months was a challenge as well, but
I knew at that time that Google was something very special, so I had the
patience to wait and it was definately worth it!
I agree that the process of hiring is a pain in the behind, but i also agree
that the hiring process should be hard as Goolge should keep up the process
hiring people that are smarter than yourself. There aren’t many companies in
the world that have so many smart and ambitious people.
The challenge is to keep up the energy within the company and enterpreneurial
part and give people the opportunity to grow within the company. I do agree
that the HR process has always been tough and I do agree that that should
change. I do think too that Google is in the process of decentralising more
and providing management with more authority, also ouside of US.
But don’d forget that Google has existed only for almost 10 years with about
16,000 employees and a 20B dollar company and then you have growing pains as
well.
With these numbers and the fact that Google has a model where
you look closely at teh high performers and the quality of employees is
extremely high, you have issues where you cannot make everyone happy at the
same time. It’s a lot about numbers as well and we must admit Google is
pretty good at numbers, right?
Again, I worked for Google for 5.5 years and I had a great time growing from
a small company of like 500-600 people to 16,000 now.
Again, I agree that HR should be more decentralised and not all be approved
out of MV as the current long process of approvals from MV and little
authority from local offices causes pain and time and influences the spirit
within the company negatively.
And having worked for Google and leaving Google the right way without any
issues should be a great jump in your career as with Google the knowledge is
huge and not many other companies I know has this knowledge, so use that as
good as you can!
Marc
From: “Phil
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 12:38:10 -0700
Local: Thurs, Jun 5 2008 1:38 pm
Subject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.
On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 5:30 PM, Dan wrote:
> I’m somewhat tempted to reply with my own list, but I’m curious ..
> what’s going to happen with all this info? Not obviously useful if no
> one is going to do anything with it (e.g., gather and post a summary
> back to the board, bring it to someone who cares).
At this point I think that the executive committee knows that there
are people out there holding these opinions. In fact, I was at a
couple of TGIFs where Larry and Sergey addressed questions about the
hiring process and others where other execs talked about why they were
making it harder for people to switch projects even though we’d been
bragging externally that it was easy. I thought long and hard about
how to talk about that during interviews. I think that a big part of
is is that Googlers are supposed to be totally “A” players who just
always make things work out well. And there’s some truth to that: for
each of us here with a bitter story to tell there are other people who
landed in pretty much the exact same situation and ended up loving it
(and a lot more who put up with it and kept their mouths shut). So,
until it gets hard for Google to hire top talent, I don’t think the
kind of complaints that have been raised here will become a priority
at the Googleplex.
There’s still a lot of value in this conversation though, if not for
Google, then for the participants. Those of us who failed to thrive at
Google are faced with some pretty serious questions about ourselves.
Just seeing that other people ran into the same issues is a huge
relief. Google is supposed to be some kind of Nirvana, so if you can’t
be happy there how will you ever be happy? It’s supposed to be the
ultimate font of technical resources, so if you can’t be productive
there how will you ever be productive? The truth is that Google can be
a really horrible place to work if you happen to run up against its
shortcomings. Not liking it and/or not being successful there is not a
good indicator of personal competence (and if you think about it you
may realize that some Googlers are successful despite being
incompetent, so it works the other way too.) With so much positive
press about Google it is very difficult to put a negative experience
there in perspective. This thread serves to balance the picture and
gives us a, sometimes badly needed, lens through which to view our
experience at Google and re-evaluate ourselves.
I think that it’s painful for some Google alum to read these posts
when their own experiences were so positive and their sense of loyalty
to Google runs so deep. I think that it would be a mistake to become
cynical about Google. Something truly unique and magical happened
there and may still be happening for all I know. But the magic was
neither universal nor unflawed, and the Google experience left some of
us with open wounds. I was going to say that it would be Googly to be
respectful of that, but to be honest, Google culture just isn’t that
mature. Not yet anyway. Nevertheless, the most positive thing for
those of us who are interested in this thread to do is to understand
and respect the experiences described here. Doing so will, in a small
way, strengthen our own careers as well as those of the people around
us. And eventually some little bit of the learning we do here will
inevitably seep back into Google and do some good after all.

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Jdt2 Task 1

...interoffice memorandum to: | Richey Richman, CEO | from: | Elementary division manager | subject: | employee’s claim of constructive discharge | date: | June 10, 2013 | | | Constructive discharge is when an employee feels he or she has been forced to resign or quit their job because the employer has made their working conditions intolerable to a point that any reasonable person would have also resign or quit. The employee does not have to explain why they were forced to quit or resign. In cases where religion is sited, he or she may think, or feel, they must quit or resign because of a conflict with their religious beliefs, and being able to perform their job to managements expected levels. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, volume 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a) (1); states in pertinent part: (a) Employer practices It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer - (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or This section of the US code prohibits discrimination against a person based on their religious beliefs and/or convictions. Also, Title VII requires an employer to provide reasonable accommodation for an employee's religious practices and observances, unless doing so would cause an undue hardship to the employer. (Ross...

Words: 1576 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Hr Memo

...| Toy Company | Memo To: CEO From: , Elementary Division Manager Date: [ 11/19/2012 ] Re: Employee Constructive Discharge A. As I am sure you are aware, production staff is now required to work four consecutive twelve hour days. Then they have four days off. These days can be any day Monday through Sunday. A former employee has quit due to these circumstances and is claiming constructive discharge. Constructive discharge is when an employer creates an environment so uncomfortable for the employee that he or she is compelled to resign (Underwood, 1998, p.343). Underwood states that an employee forced to resign under these conditions is said to have been constructively discharged (1998, p.343). Constructive discharge would apply here. The environment is not uncomfortable or unbearable every day. However, the way an employee of certain religious background would feel working on a Holy day would be of great discomfort. There is also a process that needs to be followed for constructive discharge to be considered. The employee needs to inform the employer about the working conditions that are making it uncomfortable or unbearable. The employee needs to give the employer fifteen days to respond about the conditions. B. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects individuals against employment discrimination on the bases of race and color, as well as national origin, sex, and religion. Title VII applies to...

Words: 994 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Turnover: Examining The Effects Of Leadership Case

...studies (Nigerian universities, etc.,) identify that the major turnover reasons are related to compensation and benefits, development, stress, perceived alternative work opportunities, leadership issues, and overall job satisfaction. When it comes to compensation, employees ultimately decide to leave because they are not happy with their pay or their benefits. In some cases, the employee is in need of better compensation, which prompts them to find a job elsewhere. If an employee is seeking development opportunities in his or her career and it is not being provided, the employee decides to move on and find better opportunities with a new employer. Stress is also a big factor in intent to turnover. When the work environment becomes stressful, employee's feel overwhelmed. Leadership is often a cause of stress in the workplace. Perceived alternative work opportunities also entice employees to seek employment elsewhere. If they think they can find a better job, better pay, a better environment, or a better boss, they tend to move on. Overall job satisfaction includes all of these aspects, including leadership and the organizational...

Words: 912 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Constructive Discharge

...the employee’s claim. Constructive discharge is when an employee resigns from a job, claiming that the employer has made it impossible for the employee to continue working for the company. Because the resignation is not truly voluntary, it is considered termination or firing. In order to establish a constructive discharge claim, the employee must show reasonable evidence that the discharge occurred, also known as “prima facie”. To show prima facie, the plaintiff must show the following factors occurred: 1. The employee resigned directly because of a change in working condition or policy implemented by the employer (Niznik, 2012). 2. There was a “cause and effect” relationship between the resignation and the change in working condition or policy; both must have occurred within reasonable time of each other (Niznik ,2012). 3. Any reasonable employee would resign under the same circumstances because the change in policy or working condition was unbearable (Niznik ,2012). 4. The resignation was predictable – the employer intentionally implemented the change, knowing any reasonable would quit (Niznik ,2012). Although the employee can prove factors #1 & 2 occurred, it would be extremely difficult for the employee to prove that any other “reasonable” employee would resign because of the new policy (#3). Additionally, the company could not predict the employee would resign, nor would the company intentionally implement a policy to force an employee to quit (#4)...

Words: 1470 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Retention

...problem. That's not to say that every employee who leaves your company is unsatisfied — after all, some will retire, leave town, quit because of family circumstances, desire to change professions, or even start a business of their own. But if you have a lot of turnover and you're losing good employees, you may want to give some thought to the possibility that the cause of high employee turnover in your business is a morale problem. Causes of High Turnover The causes of turnover are related to the same factors that contribute to absenteeism — if workers are not interested in their jobs, they will either stay away or leave. But being unhappy in a job is not the only reason why people leave one employer for another. If the skills that they possess are in demand, they may be lured away by higher pay, better benefits, or better job growth potential. While you can't control what's happening with other companies, how much they pay, or which benefits they offer, you can take steps to improve morale at your business and make those employees who are with you happy and productive. That's why it's important to know and recognize the difference between employees who leave because they are unhappy and those who leave for other reasons. The following are some of the more common reasons for high turnover in businesses: A bad match between the employee's skills and the job. Employees who are placed in jobs that are too difficult for them or whose skills are underutilized may become...

Words: 680 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Retaining Talents

...INTRODUCTION All organizations have people who work in it. Regardless of the size of an organization or the extent of its resources, the organizations still stand because of the capabilities and performance of its people. The capabilities and performance are needed in the organizations to run its business regardless of whether the organization refers to people as Human Resource Management, Human Resource Development, Personal Department or Talent Management. A person or human resource is a valuable asset for an organization. Without them, organization cannot run business and definitely unable to achieve its goal that has been set. Human resources (HR) are the backbone of an organisation (Gerhart & Milkovich 1990, Pfeffer 1998). Many years ago, human resource are called personal department in which it covers the paperwork activities such as filing, recordkeeping and paying the employee. The increasing awareness about the importance of people as an asset to organization has changed the way organizations describe people-human resource. The Human Resource Management (HRM) function includes a variety of activities, such as job analysis, human resource planning, employee recruitment, selection, motivation and orientation, performance evaluation and compensation, training and development, labor relations and employee safety and health. However, recently, the phrase "talent management" is being used to describe human resource and it does refer to the activities that attract...

Words: 6052 - Pages: 25

Premium Essay

Benefits

...for your employees based on their experience, education, and knowledge. When employees are searching for jobs, one of the first things they want to know is how much they will be making per an hour or if it is salary, the employee will want to know how much their salary is going to be. So that would be one of the most important things to consider when planning for the process of employee benefits. The second most important thing when a company is planning for employee benefits would be medical insurance. Most companies offer health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, and prescription coverage. Now a days, every person has to have health insurance due to the Obama care so that is why the medical insurance is one of the most important things to plan when planning the employee’s benefits process. Medical insurance is important because it helps everyone in the family to be able to see a doctor and to be seen when they are sick. This also helps with the productivity within the workplace when people are not always sick(2012). The third thing that is important when a company is planning for employee benefit’s process would be paid time off. This would include vacation time, sick days, and holidays. Some...

Words: 739 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Payroll

...Subject: Termination of employment checklist Following our conversation from last week, I noticed that all employees who has been terminated have no termination of employment record. In this memo I am proposing a reorganization of all employee’s files by adding more information regarding their leave. The company has 128 employees and also have personnel form placement agencies. When I need to find details about employment/unemployment, i should be able to retrieve it with no delay and no time consuming. From my yesterday experience, we had to lay off two employees from the production department. I was unable to submit a brief report about the termination. They left the company without signing out and without giving back the tools that belongs to the company. My plan is to use a spreadsheet which can be used when employees are being fired, lay off, quit, parental leave, sick leave, etc. The following items should be checked off prior to an employee leave. Not all items will apply to all employees or all circumstances. Once the form is completed, it will be placed in the employees personal file and kept for two years: - Meet with the employee in a private, neutral location such as conference room or closed office to inform about why they are being fired or lay off; - Give the employee a termination letter that documents their last day, outlining the reason they are no longer working for the company and provide information about severance, benefits and other...

Words: 444 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Paper

...Benefits Can Increase Job Satisfaction and Performance How to Determine How Much to Pay Your Employees Workplace Rules Protect Your Business and Maintain a Positive Employee Environment Read more about Managing the Workplace »A high employee turnover rate, the rate at which employees leave a business, can affect the bottom line of businesses of all sizes. However, the negative effect on small businesses can be particularly harsh due to limited resources and the investment in employees. Because employees who are satisfied with their jobs generally don't give them up, high turnover is usually indicative of a problem. That's not to say that every employee who leaves your company is unsatisfied — after all, some will retire, leave town, quit because of family circumstances, desire to change professions, or even start a business of their own. But if you have a lot of turnover and you're losing good employees, you may want to give some thought to the possibility that the cause of high employee turnover in your business is a morale problem. Causes of High Turnover The causes of turnover are related to the same factors that contribute to absenteeism — if workers are not interested in their jobs, they will either stay away or leave. But being unhappy in a job is...

Words: 712 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Leadership and Employee Turnover in Hotel Industry

...LEADERSHIP AND EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN HOTEL INDUSTRY Submitted By: Mahesh A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of B.A (Hons) Date Abstract With the highest employee turnover rate, the hospitality industry need to encourage employees to voice their opinions, ideas, and any of their other concerns for improving performance and reducing employee turnover. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of different types of organizational culture and different leadership styles on employee voice in the hospitality industry. Hospitality human resource practitioners could modify their organizational culture and leadership style according to the results of the study, in order to encourage their employee voice. The results of this study could also contribute to the literature about factors that influence employee voice. ACKNOWLEGDEMENT I would like to thanks to my module tutor who helped me a lot to complete this assignment. Table of content Page Number Chapter 1 1.1 Background: 1.2 Aims and Objectives / Research Questions / Hypothesis 1.2.1 Aims & Objectives 1.2.2 Research Question ...

Words: 3254 - Pages: 14

Premium Essay

How Can Absenteeism & Presenteeism from Poor Employee Health Affect Productivity in Australian Business?

...Presenteeism and absenteeism are both directly related to the health of an employee both through the employee’s physical condition and mental state (De Lorenzo-Romanella 2011). This essay aims to provide an insight into how both presenteeism and absenteeism due to poor health can affect Australian businesses productivity. As there is limited Australian studies relating to this topic, overseas studies have been reviewed. This comprised of mainly American studies due to the cultural similarities. A brief explanation of what is meant by the terms presenteeism and absenteeism, is needed to help the evidence to show by what means productivity can be affected. Also reviewed is how certain industries require different measures to collect specific data and why there is conjecture about converting presenteeism and absenteeism to monetary values. In addition the results of some employee health programs that have been implemented by some employers will be presented. Presenteeism is the term used for when an employee is present in the place of work, whilst not functioning at 100 percent productivity. This could be due to the employee’s health condition referring to the employee’s physical or mental state or a combination of both (Sanderson et al. 2007; Bergstrom et al. 2009; Brooks et al. 2010; Stewart et al. 2011). Employee self reporting questionnaires is usually how presenteeism is assessed and this is demonstrated throughout the various literature that is presently available. Conditions...

Words: 2225 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

Hr Jdt2 Task 1

...Western Governors University MBA / Human Resources – JDT2 – Task 1 MEMO TO: Arnita Hudson, CEO FROM: Heather Barth, Elementary Division Manager DATE: March 6, 2014 RE: Title VII Claim A) After implementing the new 12-hour / 4-day production shift policy, an employee quit and filed a constructive discharge claim with the EEOC. Constructive discharge is an illegal discriminatory practice in which an employee is forced to resign because of an alleged unbearable work environment. Constructive discharge as a legal concept is relevant to our situation in that an employee has quit, alleging religious discrimination. There are legal arguments that must be proven by the accuser in order for a constructive discharge charge to be upheld. “To constitute a constructive discharge, the employer must deliberately create intolerable working conditions, as perceived by a reasonable person, with the intention of forcing the employee to quit and the employee must actually quit.“ (MOORE v. KUKA WELDING SYSTEMS, 1998) The burden lies on the employee, who must establish that working conditions were so difficult that they were obliged to resign because of a 1) discriminatory reason or 2) reason contrary to a well-defined civic policy such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits an employer from refusing to hire, from firing, or discriminating against a worker in any way based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. (National...

Words: 1915 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Consensual Relationship Agreement

...Consensual Relationship Agreement Zachery Jenkins BUS 520: Leadership and Organizational Jelena Vucetic 4/22/12 Consensual Relationship Agreements According to studies, about 80% of people have either been in or witnessed romantic relationships in their workplace (Loftus). Consensual Relationship Agreements or “Love Contracts” are guidelines and agreements between employer and employee on handling these workplace romances. The idea behind these contracts is to differentiate between what is actually an office romance, what is consensual, versus actions that are uninvited, such as sexual harassment. Now whether or not they are necessary or even effective depends on how you choose to analyze them. CRAs could deem themselves pretty useful in my current workplace. Full time employees work an average of 45 hours per week, which is a little over 26% of the entire week if broken down into a percentage. Spending over a quarter of your week in the same place, with the same people, both male and female, the possibility of attraction between two individuals involved will certainly increase. Since it’s nearly impossible to manage human nature, adopting policies and guidelines to accommodate these romances, would actually be fostering the mental psyche of the modern professional man and woman, and allowing them to work in more comfortable and secret-free environment. In the type of team environment that I work in, where each employee has to interact with another on a daily basis...

Words: 2126 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

Uas Toy Company

...| USA Toy Company | Memo To: Company CEO From: Plant Manager CC: Company Attorney Date: 5/18/2013 Re: Companies Response to an Ex-Employee’s Claim of Constructive Discharge and the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Law How is Constructive Discharge Relevant to this Situation? Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of their race, color, religion, national origin, or sex (Shaker, n.d.). This law provides legal recourse for employees to seek Constructive Discharge for discrimination of their legal rights if they believe a change to a policy or procedure has violated their rights (Shaker, n.d.). The law specific to religious beliefs applies to this situation that has occurred within the company. On November 1, 2011, the Human Resource (HR) Department provided training to the each of the division managers regarding a change to the employee work shift schedule to begin on January 1, 2012. This change was a direct result of the company’s increase in growth and production demand. Following the meeting, each division manager scheduled a date and time that week for their employees to receive comparable training from the HR Department. The HR personnel also relayed to the employees that the change in work shift schedule was a necessary response to the company’s increase in growth and production demand. Employees were given the same opportunity as the division managers to ask questions, receive feedback,...

Words: 2306 - Pages: 10

Premium Essay

Corcord Bookstore Organizational Change

...that they need to improve their understanding of how organizational change should occur to produce positive outcomes (Spector, 2010, p. 2). The situation the owners were responding to was the increase in competition from chain bookstores and Internet sales. They did not get the employee’s or the current management staff any notice the change was coming by just telling the staff that a new general manager would be put into place who would take the over the responsibilities of the three person management team currently in place. This led to resignations by the three managers and five other senior employees’ with a total of 73 years’ experience at the bookstore. This had an adverse community reaction regarding its effect on the bookstore. Owners maintained that this change was necessary because of financial considerations (Spector, 2010, p. 2). This paper will key in on the failure of the owners to initiate effective, phased change process that would have decreased the resignations of key staff. Ignoring the different Phases of Change The turmoil that this change created is that the owners ignore primary issues of the staff and fail to understand an effective change process. The owners identified the why, financial impact of chain stores and Internet, but failed with the staff buy-in of the need for change (Borkowski, 2005, p. 380-383). This helped to ensure that the change process would create resistance by employees because they did...

Words: 695 - Pages: 3