These two reasons for motivation at work and for leaving work, in "exciting & challenging work" and "limited recognition & praise" do seem unrelated. Personally, exciting and challenging work is a very large motivation factor for me in a job. The reason for leaving work due to limited recognition could be related to this. It could be a possible scenario where there are a limited number of employees tasked with the truly exciting and challenging tasks, which many people covet. Due to this, the employees assigned to these projects are the ones who receive the most recognition and praise for their work, and in turn continue that cycle of the challenging and exciting work. Do others think this could be a possible link between these reasons for motivation at work and leaving work?

The two survey answers seem unrelated to me. I say this because you can love your job without being praised. Everyone wants to feel appreciated and receive recognition, but if you truly love what you're doing do you really need to be praised for everything that you do? Obviously one needs recognition in order to move up in their career path, however, if you want to discuss job satisfaction than the criteria should really be focused on, do you enjoy what you're doing? Not, does your boss like what you are doing? It is for that reason that I believe the two survey answers you presented have no correlation.

For an individual to leave work, there could be multiple reasons. One of the many reasons could be not receiving recognition for the work delivered. Being recognized by your superior for the outstanding work you deliver is as important to anyone as receiving a salary after you complete hours at the job. Other main reason could be difficulty in working with team members or partners. Projects always involve multiple people and different departments, If controversies are developed regularly among the teammates, that could lead to uneasiness and jeopardize the project, which definitely leads to leavign work.

I agree with the overall consensus of the class that says that at first it is easy to receive praise because you are new and upper level management will be impressed by you. Once you set a standard of work for yourself this praise will decrease as your superiors will be used to the work you do. I feel like this is something that will happen anywhere regardless of the environment of the company. Personally, I feel that a better reason to leave work would be because the job is a dead end and I have no potential to move up in a company. Obviously, I do not want to be at an entry level position and salary for the rest of my life. So, if i feel like a company will not give me room to grow I will look for another one that will.

One of the main reasons people leave work is poor management. This can occur when a manager is not competent enough to keep track of all members on a team which leads to an imbalanced assignment of tasks where qualified people do menial tasks and inexperienced members perform more labor-intensive tasks. Expressing limited recognition and praise is also a very valid reason for leaving a company as it was the case at the contract research organization (CRO) that I am currently employed with. Praise and recognition in my company mainly comes in the form of company-wide emails, which are sent out whenever an individual is promoted. Although these recognition emails are distributed upon a promotion, not all promotions result in praiseworthy emails, which leaves some feeling excluded and left out, resulting in a high turnover rate within a particular department.

There are times where management reprimands an individual to set an example (receiving a write-up for requesting a work schedule change over 2 months in advance). From my experience, this results from management assuming that members within a department do not talk in the sense that wronging one department member is the same as wronging them all. Can poor management result in a vicious cycle in any way? For example, poor management in my previous companies resulted in high turnover rates that led to management frantically trying to assign complex tasks to inexperienced individuals, causing even more frustration. Is there a way for poor management of this nature to be addressed and nullified?

These are all fairly obvious reasons for leaving a job to move to a different one. I'm actually curious as to the other, maybe less common, reasons why people leave. What about those who need to leave to take care of a sick family member or be closer to one? Sadly, I feel as though this is a somewhat common occurrence. Others get sick themselves (cancer, etc) and have no choice but to leave their job if not the workforce entirely. I also see some people moving away for an initial job for experience and for a change of scenery and then they move back after a few years, even if they like their job, because of the family and friends they left behind. Have any of you seen these issues come up?

As other stated I do agree but there are many reason why people leave. Limited recognition and praise is one because people that work for a company for a long time and they see no future progression, they can decide to leave. I would because the employers aren't valuing ones work for even being consider a higher position, if there is one, employers will just check if they completed their task and move on. Not being praise for accomplishments time over time will bore one to even work for the company because you are doing the same thing over and over.

I believe that leaving your place of employment simply because you don't feel praised or recognized for your effort is understandable, but not a great reason. It's not about trying to get recognition because the work you are doing is about helping the company benefit the customers, who are the people. You, personally, should praise yourself first and foremost by telling yourself that there are others who are not willing to do the work you are doing or simply are not as bright as you to be able to do it so well. Looking for praise and recognition is not something that should be emphasized. The results of your own work is it's own reward. At times the employer may dismiss the hardship that you endured, but then again, the employer chose you for that person out of all the others that applied so it's not like the employer doesn't see you as valuable to his/her business. I think that this is not related to the second reason, which is exciting and challenging work because this is somewhat subjective. What you consider to be challenging may be different than what someone else thinks is challenging. It's only challenging when you don't know it, but when you know what to do through experience and education, then it's not hard at all. It may still be a lot of work that you have to do, but knowing is half the battle. So I don't think that these two reasons are correlated with each other.

To address the points raised by colleagues, I would like to share a personal work experience as told to me by my friend. She said: "... I was working as part of an IT entity in a major university in the US. At first, I was just happy to be hired as a part-time student worker and having a stable additional income. However, as I worked closely with the supervisors in that department, I felt the favoritism that's driven by mere personal taste in friendship and not by the quality of one's quality of work. I noticed for example and after working there for so many years, there's a certain group of student employees whose pictures would be posted in the supervisory team office. It just so happen that those student workers had newly developing friendship with the supervisors. They were invited to their homes on the weekends for parties. On the other hand, they had their own insider's running jokes that they brought to work with them. They would also choose restaurants and create work-sponsored events that they were interested in, and having trying going with them twice or thrice, the whole thing was clear, it was one of their going-outs, and people like me who were out of that circle, had almost no business being there. We were just an extra contributor to some of the events that were not sponsored by work. Moreover, it was clear to everyone involved, promotions were based on how much an employee was close with the sup team, on a personal level. Even worse, if you were from the same race as the general manger, it was almost guaranteed that you would be promoted. I stayed there for so long because I desperately needed the money. But when I left, I felt the bad taste in my mouth".

I still think about my friend's experience and it makes worry about finding a job. I don't think I can handle that level of ugly favoritism.

I can definitely understand why not getting enough praise or recognition might cause someone to leave their job. Human beings naturally want to feel appreciated for what they do. When you spend a lot of effort and time doing something, it is natural to want to be recognized for it. While you may not be recognized for every single thing you do, a pattern of non recognition is sure to demotivate someone and fail to find any satisfaction or meaning in the work they are doing and in the place they work in. I have heard from co-workers who have worked in other companies about how they eventually got tired of only being demanded of more and more and not getting any recognition for the work they are doing and understanding of the pressure they are sometimes under. From the same co-workers I was told a story of someone who at one point got so fed up with this that he got up, left the work place and never came back. Now this is a more dramatic example, but the core of it is not far from what people desire: We want to be recognized for the work we put in.

I think having challenging work and receiving praise for what you have accomplished can be related but they aren't necessarily. You could receive praise fore doing menial work just like you could for doing challenging work. If you feel you are doing challenging work and are receiving no recognition for it that could really ruin your motivation. Alternatively you could be getting a lot of praise for doing regular work. It really depends on what drives you. If you care more about the recognition, then doing challenging work won't really matter. If you care more about the challenge then you won't care if you get recognized or not. Personally, I like a balance of both. I like to be able to challenge myself and still get the occasional pat on the back for my accomplishments. I do find it important to feel valued. If I'm putting in extra hours or jumping through hoops then I would like it to be recognized in order for me to feel like i'm valued as an employee.

I can definitely see a correlation as many people have noted. Stepping up to the plate and reaching your full potential by taking on challenging tasks is both exciting and rewarding when you put the work in. But its the reward that makes it all worth it to almost everyone. I'm inclined to say that the "reward" for one's hard work to complete challenging tasks entails money, self-fulfillment, and recognition. What is also very important to realize is that if one does not feel recognized and praised, not only do they feel like their hard work was futile, but it also may give them the feeling that they will no longer advance further in their career. The feeling of not being able to move up and take on bigger and even more pressing challenges in the future is certainly demoralizing and would undoubtedly incline someone to do something about it when it gets to a certain point.

I feel that people leave work when they feel they have become too comfortable with their job and are looking for something more challenging. After a while, when an employee becomes a master of their job, they look for the next challenge. This may come with a promotion or new responsibilities. However, when there is no room to promote, the employee will leave.

There are various reasons why people might leave work, among which , I think, financial compensation and loss of enthusiasm are primary. Sometimes, the motivation to leave can be family-related, ( for instance with military families, non-militaries spouses frequently change jobs due to relation of the other spouse. Some time, the work environment become so toxic that the employees might lose interest in their job. For instances, if employers fail to keep their employees motivated and if sexual harassment occurs within the premise of the office. Many people also leave work is because they are tired of working on the same issue forever, they are not challenged. Nowadays, people likes to be different and challenged to keep the brain busy with work while completing the project in time. I believe as an individual it is important to move up and be challenged at work. Overall, there are many reasons people quit and it really depends on the salary and the working environment.

I believe that limited recognition and praise is definitely a valid reason to leave work but I also believe if the work culture is toxic or unhealthy for the person, that’s another reason people leave. That or there isn’t growth or more knowledge from the position. Many people work because of exciting challenging work which I do believe is correlated to the limited recognition and praise. If the work isn’t exciting or challenging, you keep doing the same things over and over again and that can become boring. The fact that you’re bored at work means you’re not challenged to work hard which won’t give the opportunity to get praises or recognition for your hard work. I also do believe some people do not get recognition at work when they are working very hard and that can also cause people to leave work which might not be a reason from the work being not exciting or challenging. It is dependent on the situation. For me personally, if I am not able to grow and learn or if the environment isn’t ideal for me to work it, I would want to leave.