A lot of people do tend to leave their job because they became stagnant or the work environment became to comfortable. As a new employee the managers and engineers always praise my work and give me feedback on how to improve. However, when I talk to the engineers who have stayed at the company for longer periods of time they are completely drained. After a while, no one will say "hey great job" because it has become expected of you to reach a certain standard. When you have been at a company for over 10 years not a lot of the projects are exceptionally new or as exciting in comparison to when you first start off because the excitement has died down. Some great companies know how to keep their employees happy by giving them a promotion or raise. When people begin to get too comfortable with their environment then they begin to limit themselves in a box which causes them to maybe leave their job.

I agree with bb254 in that after some amount of time working the job you're at, you're expected to reach a certain standard and then nobody will really give out recognition or praise for carrying out your specific duties. I can definitely see why people would leave their job after becoming too comfortable and/or the work environment has become too repetitive or stagnant. On the other hand, when discussing about the surveys having to deal with why people work, the majority of responses were found in "challenging and exciting work." I can see a correlated relationship between both reasons of why people leave and why people work because if management or any of the higher-ups see how passionate and excited you are about your job, then that gives them more reason to recognize you in the work force. However, at the same time I could see them both being unrelated by the fact that if you're being challenged by exciting work then nothing else might really matter to you, in this case whether or not you get praised or recognized. This is how I can see it going both ways.

Agreeing with everyone, I would like to share my experience. I have been working as a Project Coordinator for almost an year now. Since I mastered the software, paperwork, and how to work with different departments for my program. It has become second nature. I don't worry as much as I use to. I don't find myself facing any challenges at work. Now I know exactly where each student assigned to me stands academically, and how to approach his tutor or staff member. I know how to analyze the fianancial aid information and determine who to reward the grants to. Now I find myself applying for positions in my field and positions that actually challenge me. Now I am looking for another job and move along my career path because I feel I have done what I needed to at this job. My time is up and its time to go into another opportunity. That's my personal experience after working as a project coordinator for almost an year now. So I guess that's employees leave because they want to be challenged and don't want the same repetition at a job.

I think that a lot of people leave work because they are not challenged anymore. I remember talking to someone who was leaving a company and I asked then why they wanted to leave and they told me that it was because the work was becoming boring. They were essentially doing the same thing everyday with no variations. Additionally, they were not being challenged - the person was brilliant but the work was not fulfilling to them. I think for me personally, I want to be challenged. If there was ever a point in my career with a company where I was not challenged, I too would find another opportunity. Another thing is growth in the company. If there is little to no room for advancement, this would be another thing that would make me want to leave a company. With the amount of good work that you put in, I think it is important to see growth in title and salary. In my previous internships, there was a person who had the same title and salary for over 10 years. This was really surprising to me because the amount of experience and responsibility that you get in 10 years should correlate to some sort of salary increase or positional increase.

As some of the posts above mention, a lot of people leave their jobs because they simply don’t like to get used to a routine. Instead (especially in engineering fields) workers prefer to get challenged by the daily work. I can understand that because all of us get challenged from day one at school until the day we graduate from it. For a person who does not have any previous experience in the Industry, these kind of jobs are the best since they get you into the work environment and you get to know people who can help you get a better job, a challenging job. I know some people in the Industry who got jobs that are relating to their degree but it is not “challenging one.” However, they have told me that whenever their hourly pay get increased and more benefits are offered you forget about these kind of things. So at the end of the day, it is a balance that each individual decides where to go.

Let me know what you think
Sincerely,
Roberto Pineda.

Workers ought to be in a consistent condition of learning. They acknowledge and comprehend that data develops at a record pace in all organizations and not staying aware of data is a certain approach to get behind the opposition. Specialists who look for advancements must be on the front line of data. Goal-oriented people need to learn and when they sense learning openings are smothered, they will look for greener fields.

There can be many reasons to leave work, one of which as you stated would be limited praise/recognition. Many times people also feel that they would be better off in a different division if there is stagnation within their own division. Moreover, many times companies go through ups and downs and during certain phases management may decide on restricting innovation and choosing to pursue bolstering their current products. I believe a lot of larger companies are in that phase currently. For example, Johnson and Johnson currently does not innovate products as much as in previous years, rather they look to buy startups that are already well advanced, and upgrade/diversify their portfolios in this way. Employees may want to be actively involved in creating products rather than supporting products that are out on market already and this can be a key reason they choose to find employment elsewhere.

That is a great question Talha! I believe our classmates shared some great reasons for why this might be. In addition to the aforementioned reasons including feeling stagnant, no longer receiving praise or finding new and exciting projects, there seems to be another major reason. That is growth. Growth in position, title, status, responsibilities and salary. Often after achieving a certain seniority it may be difficult to continue to grow in a single company. This forces employees to seek external opportunities that would better fit their skill set.

I know a few people that had a fear of feeling " too comfortable" at work, sometimes you adjust to a certain rhythym and just conform, as a result they move around to another position. Currently, I am transitioning from a co-op to a employee position. So I am currently at that excited state to begin my engineering career, at probably one of my ideal/dream companies. I will not sure how I will feel in the future, whether I feel to comfortable or will try to explore other areas to aspire my career development.

Chris

I would liken an employee's feeling about a job to the product life cycle. It is phasic, moving from introduction, through growth, maturity, and ultimately decline. In much the same way, there is excitement and positive feelings during the introduction and growth phases of a given job. Eventually maturity is reached at a given position, and the height of excitement has been reached. Decline starts to set in as the positive feelings around a job begin to diminish. All of these phases have variable lengths. The thing that separates great companies from average companies is their ability to maintain excitement and challenge and positivity throughout the maturity phase on the employee life cycle. As soon as decline begins to set in, there is little to nothing that can be done to reverse it (for a product or an employee), so avoiding it is key.

I think "praise" and "challenging work" are connected. If people are not stimulated they will not be motivated to work on the said project and there will be no praise. I think the take away is that people want to work on "challenging work" that gives them stimulation and that they can get excited about. I believe that if you are not challenged, then it is a good time to start looking for employment elsewhere. If a company wants to keep it's employees and stay competitive, I would think they would want their employees to work on "challenging work".

There are a lot of reasons why someone would leave their job. As they have seen before, there is some correlation with the “limited recognition” that causes some workers to leave their job. However, this is only an initial action because as a new employee, the current workers want to make you feel welcome in the company which can be accomplished through compliments and praises. Eventually, this will be a norm and you will just be expected to perform at the same level and eventually better. This leads to the next point that there is a point in time in a worker’s timeline where the work becomes arduous or boring and this is another reason that people tend to leave. People want to face new challenges and new things constantly but there comes a time when everything becomes monotonous where work becomes similar throughout and this becomes a reason why people seek new jobs.
Me personally, I’ve left jobs for the reason that it becomes too burdensome and there are times when I do work and I don’t see myself doing the same thing for long periods of time and that is why I choose to find different jobs.

In my experience, I tend to feel that there is a definite moderate correlation between workplace recognition and challenging/exciting work. As many have said before me, bb254, jvv6, tn58, ect., expectations if you as an employee tend to change over the course of time spent at a position. In the beginning, recognition and praise comes easily as you are new to the position and the work is challenging to master and stimulating due to it being new. Gradually, the work becomes second nature and the praise turns into managers expecting the same quality of work day in and day out. In the end, these two factors combine to lead to feeling a lack of enthusiasm for the next day’s work.

Specifically, during my time at both pharmaceutical and medical device companies, the new hires tended to have that extra amount of enthusiasm for their jobs compared to individuals who have been at the same position for 2-7 years. This was most clearly able to be seen during the biweekly presentations of what the individuals have accomplished. The newer employees presented with such vigor and enthusiasm for their findings and discoveries and received much praise for making a positive contribution. Meanwhile, individuals in the same position for many more years seemed to just be stepping through the motions and were only given approving nods by the managers and coworkers when their turns were completed. This discrepancy in treatment and motivation for the job definitely go hand in hand and a clear bias of more seasoned workers was always seen moving on to different positions.

People leave work because of "limited recognition and praise" but they stay for "exciting, challenging work." If the work is interesting but there is no recognition, will people leave? If the work is uninteresting but they are receiving praise, will they stay? I think both answers depend on the money being made, i.e. the relationship between these two responses it money. If your making a considerable amount of money boring work and no praise might seem unimportant. Then challenging work and praise do not matter if you are not seeing much money from them. My experience for the reason why people change jobs is more money or higher, more responsible positions (that, as such, offer more money). In our culture, receiving more money is a sign of praise and more challenging work (doctor, engineer) offers more money. It is said that the importance of an object to a society is measured by how many words we have for it. Well money can be called cash, dough, moola, currency, and many more.