Listen, according to this Selling Power article:
“One of the mistakes companies have made in the past is that they make decisions without real input from the people who are most affected by the hiring decisions,” says Opton. “Companies need to realize that they always have two sets of customers – internal and external. The minute that someone comes to work for them, that person becomes an internal customer to the organization. The organization needs to listen to what their needs are and act on those needs.”
The article references a survey regarding executives’ wants, but it is representative of employees also. The interesting stat that always seems to come out of these surveys:
“Just 12 percent pointed to compensation as the reason why they leave companies,” says Opton. “We see this year after year – money will motivate people to come on board, but it can’t make them stick.”
Excellent point, can’t make them stick. Many managers assume a decent paycheck (the manager gets to define “decent”) will keep most salespeople happy. But look at these numbers:
“Nearly half of the dissatisfied executives reported limited advancement opportunities; lack of challenge; a desire for more managerial responsibility, autonomy or technical improvement; or dislike of the work as the reasons they were ready to bolt,” states the study. “Issues relevant to lifestyle – work/life imbalance, commute, relocation, and business travel – became deal breakers for another 21 percent. Difficulty with the culture and the boss accounted for 13 percent of executive dissatisfaction.”
I suspect the commute topic will become more prevalent in the next study thanks to the gas price trend.