Why your employees are leaving you & vocabulary spring cleaning

Following episode 40, this episode will point out 11 chilling reasons why you should never use the term “Open the Kimono” again in your job ad. Furthermore, we’ll together discover why your employees are resigning, and how to turn this great attrition into a great attraction. Have fun! Do you have comments, feedback, or ideas on topics we should deep dive into next time? Then don’t hesitate to drop us a message to our host Elena Galli here.

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Transcript

Hello, MTV, and welcome to my crib. No? Wrong show?!

Hey, everyone. Today, we’re going to be talking about how to turn the great attrition into the great attraction, and we’re going to be talking about an expression you should never, ever, ever be using again. Welcome back to The Tea on Recruiting, where we share insightful and thought-provoking content that can help you shape your recruiting career.

“Open the Kimono”

Do you remember our last episode? In it, we were talking about the jargon of jobs, and we mentioned one expression “open the kimono” that is surprisingly common in the business world. It indicates the act of sharing an organization’s internal workings and projects to a potential partner or buyer. We read an article about it and we’re not going to be sharing one; we’re not going to be sharing two. We’re going to be sharing 11 horrible assumptions behind this nasty expression:

In most American minds, the person wearing the kimono is a woman, perhaps in a specific line of work.

She is compliant and passive.

She’s there to provide entertainment.

Her value is rooted in the attractiveness of what’s underneath the kimono.

She’s a commodity.

She is exotic, mysterious, silent, vulnerable, and most importantly, nameless and faceless.

And now about the counterpart:

In most minds, a counterpart is a man, and this person thinks they have to right to demand to see what’s under the kimono.

He’s in charge of making decisions about whose kimonos to open and when.

He is the judge of value.

His needs, feelings, and desires are the only ones that matter. So no protests, no negotiation.

And finally, it is expected and normal for him to display agency dominance and even aggression.

So when we put all of this information together, it’s fairly simple to understand why this expression doesn’t belong inside or outside of the workplace. Truly, no one should be using this anymore. And it’s also fairly simple to understand why fifty-one percent of Asian women claim that they’re highly on guard against discrimination in the workplace. So truly, if you want to be inclusive, this may be your sign to do a little bit of a vocabulary spring cleaning. I’m feeling very inspired to get rid of all the garbage.

Are you ready for today’s second piece of content?

“Great Attrition” or “Great Attraction”

We’ve read an excellent report by McKinsey, and this is what we learned. So between the months of April and September of 2021, over 19 million U.S. workers quit their jobs, and many companies don’t seem to understand why it is that their employees are leaving. So they jumped to well-intentioned, quick fixes instead of investigating, and that does not solve the problem. So, organizations offer higher compensation. But really, employees want an investment in the human aspects of work, such as autonomy, flexibility, and appreciation. Organizations offer a transaction when, really, meaningful interaction is what’s needed. Here are some worrying stats:

Thirty-six percent of the people who recently quit their jobs did not have another job in hand.

Furthermore, forty percent of the interviewed employees claim that they were likely to leave an organization in the near future. Now you might be thinking that means that 60 percent of employees are not intended to leave an organization and therefore you’re going to be just fine. But truly, the main reason why that 60 percent says they don’t want to leave the organization they work for is that they don’t want to relocate.

Now in the job market nowadays there is an abundance of location-agnostic opportunities, and therefore it is highly possible that another organization can offer them remote work and take these employees away from you. The disconnect is quite clear. Employers think that their employees are leaving for better compensation, work-life balance, or because of poor physical and emotional health. But then when you ask the employees why they actually left, they say that they didn’t feel valued by the organization or by their managers, and they didn’t feel a sense of belonging at work.

So, to turn this great attrition into a great attraction, you need to start listening to your employees. You need to involve them in your thought process, and you need to start asking yourself these questions.

Do we shelter toxic leaders?

Do we have the right people in the right place, especially managers?

How strong was our culture before the pandemic?

And as the needs of our employees changed, did the culture keep up? This is very important because prior weaknesses are now magnified.

Is our work environment transactional?

Are our benefits aligned with our employees’ priorities?

Employees want career paths and growth opportunities. Can we provide that?

How are we building a sense of community?

Now onto the CandE Crash.

CandE Crash

You know it! The more barbaric your treatment of candidates, the more demonic the reviews on your Glassdoor page. Shout out to a company we won’t name.

This candidate went through online assessment tests and then a one- or two-hour-long interview. Then they were informed that they didn’t get the job and that they would be offered feedback, which didn’t happen. So what they did is they reached out, and the organization told them that the feedback would take over two months. So slow food? We like. Slow mail? Romantic. Slow feedback is not a thing.

Got something to say about this? Drop a comment in the section below. We’d love to pick your brains. Help us get better at helping you get better with your help.

If there is anything that you want us to explore further in terms of subjects that we should touch upon or dive deeper into, why don’t you reach out to me on LinkedIn under my name Elena Galli or via email at elena@starred.com.

Now thank you for watching The Tea on Recruiting. Take care, and see you soon!

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