Employees Don't Quit Companies, They Quit People

You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. You have probably heard that quote hundreds of times. I know I have repeated it hundreds of times.

To my three boys, a new employee orientation, and any young person that asks me for advice. The point of this quote is that each of us is responsible for who we allow in our circle of friends. We must audit the people around us.

Make sure that we are spending time with people who make us better, inspire us, encourage us, in all areas of our lives. Has it hit you yet, the ah-ha moment? My leadership epiphany is the employees that work in our organizations do not get to choose who they work with and who they spend more time with - other than their family and friends.

As leaders, we choose it for them. Then we complain that we have good employees with poor morale who are not performing like they once were; we have good employees quitting our company. Then we blame it on the Great Resignation, the younger generation’s lack of work ethic, and say that all they care about is money.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Great employees hate working with lousy employees. When leaders compromise who they hire and compromise who they allow to stay, it pollutes the workplace culture.

Every leader is responsible for the average of the five co-workers your employees spend the most time with. Audit that. I disagree with the way this old adage is worded, “Employees don’t quit companies they quit leaders.”

While that is true, it is incomplete. The correct way to say it is, “Employees don’t quit companies, they quit people.” Employees quit because of the people they work with (co-workers) and for (leaders).

You can’t hire your way out of a bad culture. *John R. DiJulius III, author of The Customer Service Revolution, is president of The DiJulius Group, a customer service consulting firm that works with companies including Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Ritz-Carlton, Nestle, PwC, Lexus, and many more.