Shut Up And Quit Already

In most organizations one out of 10 employees has their foot out the door.

We call this group Satisfied Opportunists because they appear satisfied when actually they are just waiting for a better opportunity to come along. In other words they could care less about you and are hard-wired to jump ship at any moment. You might even wish that they would quit already instead of wasting valuable resources.
Using our loyalty matrix you can actually classify all your employees into one of four groups of employees and when you do this, you get a very clear picture of your workforce and where they stand in terms of being loyal to you and, more importantly, how long they plan to stay. Not only does this information help you to predict and manage turnover it also allows you to see areas of opportunity where you can make changes that will increase employee engagement, loyalty and retention simultaneously.

To classify all your employees into one of four groups we ask two key questions- how satisfied employees are, and how long they expect to stay at the organization. Years of surveying employees has revealed to us that most people know exactly how long they plan to stay if nothing changes.

Listed here are the four types of employees and what each one means:

1. Committed Loyalists represent the most desirable employees because they are highly engaged, enthusiastic and driven but statistically only half of all U.S. employees are in this group. Their high level of dedication has a positive effect on overall morale within organizations and research shows that, the higher the proportion of Committed Loyalists at your organization, the more successful and even profitable your organization is likely to be. Since only half your employees will fall into this zone there is clear room for increasing the portion of Committed Loyalists in a lot of organizations.

2. Satisfied Opportunists, as already described, are an interesting group because they are very satisfied with their job but they will not necessarily stay. They tend to be the kind of people who are hard-wired not to be loyal to any particular organization; they will leave if a better opportunity comes along. They do contribute to your turnover but there’s not a lot you can do about that. In most cases they are a small group representing 1 in 10 employees.

3. Change Seekers are those that are already planning their way out because of dissatisfaction with their jobs. They may not be leaving tomorrow but they expect to be leaving within the next 2 years or so. Sometimes there may not be a lot you can do about them and in this case they represent almost 1 in 5 employees so improving the work environment may help to delay or prevent some of them from leaving but to some degree if they’ve already made that decision/commitment to leave it may be hard to prevent them from doing that at whatever time they choose.

4. Dissatisfied Compromisers are also not satisfied with their jobs but they are not planning on leaving. And this is a group also called the quit and stay group where mentally they’ve checked out but not really because they’re still coming in and working. Clearly they’re less productive and they’re not likely to go above and beyond their job responsibilities. You find they can bring the morale down with the people around them because they are not shy and they complain openly and freely. But often their dissatisfaction is being driven by the work environment… they are not necessarily hard-wired to be dissatisfied with their work environment and it’s the factors they deal with day to day that make them frustrated.

The good news is that Dissatisfied Compromisers can be converted into Committed Loyalists by simply focusing on programs and policies designed to directly improve employee commitment and engagement. This shift represents the greatest opportunity for change and for improving employee engagement.The key is to have the knowledge and insight into your workforce so that you can make the changes that will have the greatest and positive impact on your organization.

We believe the first step is to conduct an anonymous employee survey and begin the process of understanding who works for you and how they feel.

Committing to change will lead to change.

Find out what kind of employee you are by taking our quiz here.
If we can help you get started please contact us here.