Why it's almost always a good thing when staff quit | Hacker News Reader

Why it's almost always a good thing when staff quit

dannorris.me

22 pointsspking10 comments

I disagree that it's almost always a good thing when staff quit, if for no other reason than hiring and training new staff is very expensive.

But I totally agree that there shouldn't be anyone who is actually indispensable in any company. having such an employee represents real danger to any company.

Having someone dissatisfied with where they are or what they're doing every day represents real danger to any company.

If the company wants to maintain quality, etc.

A little back story on Dan Norris. He started a WordPress support business that grew rapidly and was bought by GoDaddy. Then he started a brewery with investors that again grew rapidly and was up to 80 staff in a short time. However investors forced him out.

Now he has purchased a coffee roaster and a few months in two thirds of his staff quit. It is extremely painful to an entrepreneur when that happens. But having experienced it a few times I know he's correct it is always for the better - after a few weeks of absolute hell ;<).

So we can insert the "This is fine" meme here?

I have a job I like very much, but over time my two main areas grew so much (mostly due to external reasons), that it put me into a position where I need to do two full time jobs within the work hours/salary of one.

I already mentioned this to my superiors a year ago and they got me an assistant. But right after I got him, we got further rooms and another department that creates more work for me than I can support even with an assistant. I work in public service/university so I understand their hands are tied somewhat, but if it goes on like that I might just quit. And they will likely not find anybody who can (or wants to) do this combination of things for the salary it pays.

> I already mentioned this to my superiors a year ago and they got me an assistant. But right after I got him, we got further rooms and another department that creates more work for me than I can support even with an assistant. I work in public service/university so I understand their hands are tied somewhat, but if it goes on like that I might just quit. And they will likely not find anybody who can (or wants to) do this combination of things for the salary it pays.

Why are you stretching to do that much work?

If you can manage your workload, then from a managers perspective your workload is correct. It’s only when work doesn’t get finished when there is a signal that your workload is too much.

Complaining about it to your manager likely won’t help. Since the most important metric (work gets done) is fine there’s no problem?

Managers keep hearing from all their employees that the workload is too high and the pay is too low. Even the people you might consider lazy are asking for raises!

If you’re too nice and let yourself be taken advantage of then you might end up with similar issues in the next place as well.

You need to generate backpressure. Or indeed find something else and bail out. At least tell them why though.

Thanks for the article. How does one identify people who want to quit, but have not found the new opportunity yet? They can often bring a bad energy(eg not giving full effort to job).

Look for resources you are getting the best deal on, aka employees paid furthest below market value that get the most work done.

It’s well known in the business acquisition space that family members will say they will stay just to close the deal.

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