They Want More Than You Can Give

(NYT image)

Slightly unexpected, but this finding comports with my own experience: [bold added]

A large number of employees leave soon after their first promotion, according to new data from payroll-services provider ADP. Analyzing the job histories of more than 1.2 million U.S. workers between 2019 and 2022, the ADP Research Institute found that 29% of people quit their jobs within a month after their first promotion. It estimates that the departure rate for similar workers who weren’t promoted was 18%.

People quit their jobs for a host of reasons--whether they're successful at their current employer or not--but it may seem puzzling that the recently elevated have higher turnover than other employees.

In my case I knew after a year that working as an auditor for an accounting firm was not for me, so I finished the two years necessary to fulfill the CPA licensing requirement, spent another year in Taxes, then departed for a bump in pay. Shortly thereafter, I began managing people. Doing that in real life was far more complicated than what was taught in a business course.

One of the reasons for leaving after a promotion is that the new job often includes supervision of others. Without training, new managers often flounder. In addition supervision has only gotten more complicated in the COVID era.

Managing teams has gotten tougher with hybrid and remote work, and many new managers are caught in the middle, balancing bosses’ desire for buzzing offices with employees’ desire for greater autonomy.

“They’re sort of left on their own to adopt a whole new style of management that for many of them is very foreign,” says Heather Barrett, a director at Gallup, who co-wrote the research report.

Maybe the real story isn't lack of training but how no one, not the supervisors or the supervised, has people skills any more. Combined with high expectations and lack of patience, discontent is high.

In the age of virtual communication working conditions have never been more accommodating, but unhappiness has never been higher.