Top 10 reasons why employees resign

by Atty. Josephus B. Jimenez – The Freeman, 2 Sep 2021

Your employees are not your property. You cannot manipulate them nor exploit their lack of courage and leverage. Your workers are not your slaves. Slavery had been abolished before the arrival of the Americans at the turn of the last century. You cannot treat an employee with insult nor condescension. He is entitled to respect and with due regard to his human dignity, self-esteem and honor. Many employees leave the company and they have reasons to do so. I have had enough experience and stock knowledge to say all these: 25 years in the corporate world, 20 years in government, and more than 40 years in the academe.

The number one cause of resignations is not bad company, not bad management but bad immediate bosses. The owners may be wonderful people, top management may be very good, and management in general even excellent, but the immediate superior can be a closet tyrant, inconsiderate, inhuman, disrespectful and overly demanding like a slave driver. If you own a company and you are losing excellent people, watch out for those on top of them. Number two cause is a round hole recruiting square pegs. You have hired the wrong people for the right jobs or the right people for the wrong jobs. There is no congruence nor job fit. The employee has the talents that are irrelevant to the work, and the job needs competencies that the employee does not possess. It is the employer’s fault for bringing in the wrong people. An unhappy marriage should be dissolved asap before employers and employees start to hurt each other.

The third cause is pay that is not commensurate with the work. The task is “Kapantay ay Langit”. The play is “Bato Sa Buhangin”. Resignation is the solution. Fourth, the employer promised many things that have remained unfulfilled: promotion, salary increase, transfer to a better assignment, training opportunities. The employee has lost trust in the employer. Resignation is the way out. Fifth, rampant discrimination and obvious favoritism committed by line managers, and even with HR of all people. Discriminations in salaries, benefits, work assignments, training and transfers. Resignation is the exit mechanism. Sixth, sexual harassment by managers and supervisors. Victims do not have the will and the strength to file cases. The only way out for them is to tender their resignation. Employers should be alert against these inside predators that are causing damage to the company.

Seventh, there is no organizational justice because employee discipline is being used not to mold character but to terrorize workers. Suspensions are dismissals are imposed without just causes and without due-process. Eighth, justice is also denied to workers because there is no mechanism for raising grievances, no internal system to process issues and address concerns. People have nowhere to go when they are bothered by some issues affecting their jobs. Thus, people leave in pain carrying burdens of unresolved grievances. Ninth, there is no adequate protection for health, safety and welfare. The work environment is a sweatshop, with no ventilation and no personal protective equipment, no fire drill, no safety officer, no first aider. People leave before they get sick or are injured or even die. Resignation is their weapon of self-defense.

Tenth, people leave because they realize that they have no future. There is no training and no development program. There is no career or succession planning. Management does not practice coaching, mentoring and counselling. The human talents have nothing to look forward to. Thus, resignation is their way of flying away from a very harsh, hopeless and uncaring work. Employers should reflect on these, or they shall lose their best talents who may yet go to their competitors in no time at all. Mark my words.