8 Bad Mistakes That Make Good Employees Leave

It’s tough to hold on to good employees, but it shouldn’t be. Most of the mistakes that companies make are easily avoided. When you do make mistakes, your best employees are the first to go, because they have the most options.

If you can’t keep your best employees engaged, you can’t keep your best employees. While this should be common sense, it isn’t common enough. A survey by CEB found that one-third of star employees feel disengaged from their employer and are already looking for a new job.

When you lose good employees, they don’t disengage all at once. Instead, their interest in their jobs slowly dissipates. Michael Kibler, who has spent much of his career studying this phenomenon, refers to it as brownout. Like dying stars, star employees slowly lose their fire for their jobs.

“Brownout is different from burnout because workers afflicted by it are not in obvious crisis,” Kibler said. “They seem to be performing fine: putting in massive hours, grinding out work while contributing to teams, and saying all the right things in meetings. However, they are operating in a silent state of continual overwhelm, and the predictable consequence is disengagement.”

In order to prevent brownout and to retain top talent, companies and managers must understand what they’re doing that contributes to this slow fade. The following practices are the worst offenders, and they must be abolished if you’re going to hang on to good employees.

20 Secrets Only Nurses Know

Answer by Tasha Cooper Poslaniec, OB Nurse, on Quora.

Here are some things I’ve learned as a nurse:

Wearing a wedding/engagement ring and having a patient squeeze your hand while in pain is something you will do exactly once.
You can make a damn good ice pack from cutting open a diaper, filling it with ice, then rolling it closed and sealing it with the tape side.
People in pain are nothing like their normal selves. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was actually written about a woman giving birth. Kidding.
Washing your hands hundreds of times a day over many years will rub off your fingerprints permanently. (Which is why so many retired nurses become criminals. Kidding)
Breaking open an ampule of ammonia and putting it in a “hat” (which really is used in a toilet to catch urine) can stimulate a lazy bladder. Very handy when you’re recovering a same day surgery patient or a woman who just had a baby. (Obviously care must be taken to prevent any contact with skin and is a no-no with children)
You can make a decent hair tie by cutting off the rolled edge of a glove.
There is an art to placing a damp washcloth on a fevered brow.
The most common tell for a lie is a hesitation followed by “Uh..”
Always double the amount a person admits to doing for drugs, drinking and smoking.
Benadryl is a very bad allergy.
People don’t come with labels on their foreheads. It can actually be quite surprising to learn that someone is stark raving mad. Or isn’t.
Life is so not fair.
Mouth breathing is an absolutely essential skill.
Asking a nurse “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen” is actually a rude question. We don’t (for many reasons) dish about our patients. My answer will always be, “Well, let’s finish with you first.”
Purchase a block of cream cheese, a jar of pepper jelly and several boxes of water crackers. Put the opened cream cheese on a plate and pour the jelly over it. Voila! I’ve just given you the recipe for your next potluck. Can also be done with salsa and tortilla chips. Now get some extra sleep instead of cooking.
The slower you push an IV narcotic, the less likely your patient will vomit or get dizzy.
NO ONE knows everything. Asking questions is a sign of intelligence. NOT asking questions is a big, fat red flag to other nurses.
A nurse’s job is 50% hands on and 50% documenting. Most people don’t realize that we are simultaneously making a record of everything that happens to you while you’re our guest. Most of us despise that half, but we know how incredibly important it is for your care.
Many of us carry psychic wounds from the horrible things we’ve seen. It’s called “Trauma Stewardship”.
Cake is always the solution.