Companies work hard to get people to tell them. They run anonymous surveys. They conduct exit interviews with departing employees. Nevertheless, managers often don't fully understand what leads people to become disengaged at work -- or to quit entirely.
In this issue's Spotlight package, "What Companies Get Wrong About the Employee Experience," we explore how organizations can first really understand what causes workers' dissatisfaction and then do something about it.
In "Why Employees Quit," Ethan Bernstein and his coauthors describe their research on the four "quests" that compel people to seek new jobs and offer techniques for maximizing satisfaction in the workforce. In "Turn Employee Feedback into Action," Ethan Burris and his coauthors examine why surveys -- a common tool for improving the employee experience -- often don't pay off and how to change that. And in "Reimagining Work as a Product," Eric Anicich and Dart Lindsley advocate drawing on tools from the discipline of product design to better understand what people want from their jobs.
Managers who've experienced regrettable attrition often wonder whether they could have prevented it. These articles may help you avoid that fate.