May 2000

You pay competitive wages, provide above average benefits and even have an employee recognition program in place. All are supposed to help retain workers. Motivating workers to stay isn’t enough, though, you must not motivate them to leave.

Look around your firm. Are you guilty of any of these de-motivators?

- Providing little feedback. Feedback seems especially important to Gen X-ers but all employees need guideposts and direction.

- Making unnecessary rules. Every workplace needs some rules. Over time, though, rules and regulations stifle creativity and innovation. Morale drops as paperwork increases.

- Failing to communicate. Keeping employees in the dark helps people focus on their work, without worrying about how it fits into the grand scheme. Pretty soon, though, they stop caring about the pie and their piece or move on to a company that will share the big picture with them.

- Failing to correlate performance and pay. When slackers receive the same pay as top performers, it sends the message that you don’t have to perform to succeed.

- Failing to support a work/life balance. Younger workers, who have seen parents thrown away like paper cups no matter how loyal they were to the company, want more in their lives than just work.

- Failing to lead. Job satisfaction, to a large extent, depends on how workers feel about their boss. More and more companies are abandoning the old command styles of management because they just don’t work anymore.