I was looking around for what some people have found as reasons for why we can feel undervalued in the work we do. It led me to some reasons why people quit their jobs.
source
This can also relate to Steemit in varying ways. Old users have left. New users come in, and maybe some leave. Many have expressed dissatisfaction and feeling disenfranchised at how things work, so they leave Steemit. I'm just trying to get us to think of some things and how we can relate to them here on Steemit.
Is there some correspondence between Steemit content creators or posters doing work, and the regular work place motivations for doing tasks to get paid or rewarded?
Why do people quit standard jobs in the regular job market?
Here are some common reasons:
- They can, so they do; a better job offer
- They don't feel valued; low compensation
- They don't feel their concerns are heard
- The managers are not paying attention to work; no recognition/appreciation; no feedback/guidance/help
- They are underutilized and not using their talents; not challenged
- They leave because of managers, not the company
- They don't see growth potential for the work they do; can't move upward; limited advancement
- The culture/environment tolerates bad behavior
- They feel disconnected from others
- They don't understand what they want to do
- They are passed over for promotion/reward they deserve for the work done
- The managers/bosses are bullies
- There is a lack of trust
- They are not asked for input in the direction of the company, or to make decisions
- They don't get accepted by other workers
- They only hear from managers when they screw up
- They are bored or uninterested in the job
- The company lacks leadership
- The company has poor vision (lack of big picture for people to work towards)
- The company has poor communication
- There is a lack of justice leading to de-motivation to stay
- Poorly designed rewards system with no clear goals or expectations
The number are just there for easy referencing. This is not an exhaustive list by any means. Please feel free to add your own in the comments as well!
What do you think about these reasons?
How does your work experience relate?
Can you relate to Steemit in this way?
There are some similarities with Steemit in some cases. # 2-9 can apply in some cases that I am aware of. I'll leave it up to the comments to generate some more discussion on this, but here are some parallels that I can draw.
Brief Comparison to Steemit
Many people don't feel valued for their work or get rewarded for it (2).
Voicing concerns about issues are often not heard (3) so people can feel disenfranchised and disillusioned about the lack of ability to influence and control what is happening around them. Steemit doesn't have moderators like a standard company or website usually does to deal with issues.
Those with high stake act like managers in the system to reward others, called whales, but they can't pay attention to everyone (4), and some people do get purposefully ignored. Work is not recognized and goes unrewarded, so opting for lower standards happens.
Some people like a challenge (5), so competition has merit, but there are no standards in place to be able to discern if you're doing things right or not to get recognized and rewarded. They work they do isn't rewarded, and they don't see how they can move up (7). Many don't know what to do to get recognized.
When bad behavior is occurring (8) it can take a while to get recognized, and then to deal with it is a whole other issue that may not get resolved. The behavior can end up being tolerated because there is no set of standards or rules in place to establish a common understanding of behavior. They seem to become unwritten guidelines you learn through observation. Some people leave because of the bad behavior of others (6), not because of Steemit.
A lack of ease in facilitating communication and interconnectivity (9) on the platform leads many people to feel disconnected from being unable to easily connect and network with others when they join. The lack of information is also leaving them unable to find others to help them, so they feel disillusioned and disenfranchised and not having the ability to understand how things work.
I could talk about a few more, but I'll let you fellow Steemians do that if you want to.
Please have your say about what you think of all of this. Engage in meaningful discussion and you will be rewarded ;)
source
References:
- 15 Reasons Your Best Employees Quit And How To Stop Them
- 19 signs your company doesn't care about you
- Navigating Politics (Playing the Game in Office & Business)
- Employee Retention Fail: This Is Why Good Employees Quit
Thank you for your time and attention! I appreciate the knowledge reaching more people. Take care. Peace.
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@krnel
2017-02-09, 9:45am
I suppose we all bring our unique circumstances to the table... for me, almost all the jobs (or projects) I have quit revolve around a single central issue: Declining compensation for an increasing amount of work.
Now, I must confess that I own partial responsibility in not being a highly aggressive and competitive personality... so I tend to fall behind in situations where merit and quality of work are not the primary determinants for doing well. I have also quit because I "became redundant" a number of times (outsourcing or automation).
Can I link these to the world of Steemit? I like this place-- a LOT-- based on just a week here. I'm primarily a blogger/writer/content creator (not a developer, and only a crypto enthusiast at the most basic level) and I'm excited about finding what seems to be a "social blogging" venue. But I am also concerned that Steemit will have a hard time gaining traction in a more mainstream, large-scale sense when so much of the landscape seems dominated by bots and a certain cliqueishness. I don't see how ANY venue can hope to become a social network absent a true sense of community of real humans. A bunch of bots talking to each other doeth not a community make.
But getting back to the core question (before I end this dissertation!) another reason I have quit relates to no. 19-- but a little differently: "lacking long term vision." It's also (in part) "bad management behavior," in that nobody seems to care beyond the horizon of "what happens while I am manager."
Great post! Got me thinking about a lot of stuff....
Apparently, its very very very very very very very very very very... and on and on... HARD for people to udnerstand this SIMPLE reality. I've explained it here and there, but people just want to hold onto their attachments of simply money-making motivation and can't understand the right way to do things. Money drives a lot on Steemit, which is potentially its downfall.
As for blogging, those users are not going to be listened to with the new roadmap developed by a guy who has a focus on mobile development alone, and isn't concerned with the existing userbase. That's like ignoring your existing clients in favor of attracting new ones. Things are not going well in that respect.
Thanks for the feedback.
On paper, Steemit has a lot of potential both as a social blogging venue built around this unusual hybrid revenue sharing (or whatever you want to call it) model, as well as potential as a "soft gateway" for a broad spectrum of people to get an introduction to cryptocurrencies. I mean, WOW! That's amazing!
But how to execute that idea in a sustainable fashion? The last 18 years is littered with failed attempts. Typically, the same cluster of issues, in some combination: Lacking technology, lacking safeguards against the system being gamed, lacking community, poorly implemented features, lacking grip (or acceptance?) of the depth of greed inherent within most human nature, lack of patience, lack of resources, lack of funding...
Again, I'm neither a developer nor an alt-coin enthusiast-- I'm a writer, blogger and self-employed independent who's been studying independent solo- and entrepreneurship for a really long time... so I'm probably not bringing the typical perspective to the table... but I appreciate this forum to share it.
Any perspective is a perspective worth taking a look at :)
I can relate to quite a few of the reasons you've listed and they have actually led me to quit my first job. It's a sad thing when things change so much. It used to be an awesome job, but mainly my supervisor messed things up for me.
Sadly, I wasn't the first one to go, because of him, either. It's a shame companies lose good people, because of badly placed ones.
Bad managers and supervisors to be the bane of many people's work lives. For my husband and I we both left jobs because of our supervisors poor management skills. A new CEO came in to my husband's company , moved his favorites into HR and his management team had no training managing employees. The company went public, hug payouts went to top management positions and the rest of the employees were ignored....after all the profit was sucked out of the business, it was broken up and sold to the highest bidder....it was crazy and so many people were hurt, good hard working people who loved the company and their jobs.
Oh gosh, that sounds horrible :-(
It's a common story, especially in the data gathering world. Many of our friends never recovered and may not work again. These are people who made over 60,000 to a 100 thousand a year....their jobs were shipped off to India. Sadly this business practice does not seem to be good for anyone except the top corporate seats. Managers were brutal hoping to stress employees out so they would quit and the company wouldn't have to pay for a severance package. Big bonuses were give. To managers with the least amount of payouts.
For me it's the lack of freedom of having jobscopes and clock-ins/outs. Had a few terrible years experiencing dayjobs - my body and mind totally rejects it, but went through the motions until I found my way out.
I've always liked freelancing since I can choose what to do. Plus since starting my music event biz (made it in such a way that we don't have loads of meetings and zero office, entirely remote and only need to setup the venue before events) and also getting on Steemit contributing whatever I want - never been happier.
Been putting out free stuff on Facebook for a decade and now I'm geting some rewards doing it, it's awesome lol. (dont really like to hardsell anyway)
I went a full nine years with no raise. In that time my family grew from three to seven and money got tighter and tighter. I pushed to take on more work in the hope it would result in a corresponding raise, but my managers weren't interested in paying me more, just in their own prestige for the extra work we would be doing for our client.
I watched many people come and go in my nine years, and I think I saw nearly every one of those identified reasons being given by the folks leaving. The sad part was we are highly and expensively trained and they were losing more money from turnover than they would ever spend on raises.
I'm glad to see this list, it will be helpful in my future endeavors if I ever become a manager. If you want to keep people, make sure you keep all of these things to a minimum.
3,5, and 19 are the reasons that would most likely cause me to quit a job. I can see how a lot of these reasons can relate to quitting here at SteemIt. However, having ventured into making money online via blogging or other similar methods has changed my thoughts on making money online.
Blogging or other website building often takes long periods of time and or money in order to generate a lot of traffic to your post. Thus, it takes a lot of persistence and a bit of luck (Depending on the platform) . When starting from an empty blog especially if it your first you will spend a lot of time writing post with very little or no interaction with other people. I find that SteemIt is very similar and in all honesty a lot of the post don't leave much to be said in the comments as they are not conducive to conversation. I don't like to leave comments on post if all I can say is "wow" or "that is awesome". I want my comments to add some sort of substance to the post.
A lot of people come here strictly for the money and if they don't make it right away they start looking for the next shiny new object. This isn't saying that there are not issues with this platform because there is, just like an other platform. But many new users do not give it enough time to build a following and or work on finding ways to garner more views or engagement from the community.
Quite accurate :) and well said overall. Thank you for the feedback.
The top reasons that would make me quit a job are:
All 3 of these can relate to Steemit. Thankfully I've avoided the worst of the trolls / miscreants, and I'm generally a team player who stays away from pointless arguments, so stress is definitely not a problem for me here. I've found the community to be very welcoming, friendly, and approachable.
Thankfully #3 is also not a problem. I love writing and being creative; Steemit is an enjoyable hobby, a good way to blow off steam (see what I did there).
#2 is the part causing me grief these days. To get a sense of accomplishment & satisfaction from life, one must experience upward progression. With most things in life (dorm room -> apartment -> house, intern -> entry level grunt -> manager) there's a very clear path forward and well defined steps on how to get there. The problem with Steemit is the progression is fuzzier, less concrete.
I've been here for 6 months. I never figured it would be easy, and I never expected to make a lot of money. Write to write well, not to make money, is my motto. After a while I started to enjoy a modicum of success, getting consistent @curie & whale votes, and great discussion on my posts. I had that sense of progression. It felt amazing. Then New Year's came, and I hit a brick wall. The votes dried up. The comments & engagement lessened. 3 out of my last 4 weekly posts have not done well. The last 2 fell as flat as my very first posts from months ago.
It feels like I'm moving backwards. Doing well on Steemit is certainly merit based, but unlike a real world job there's an element of seeming randomness, a feeling that you have to be lucky to get noticed. And I'm not complaining about whales or curation guilds. They are doing a wonderful job and are a great service to the community. I am thankful for them. But I can't help feeling like something more is needed. I don't know exactly what; perhaps things will get better in time as Steem Power slowly becomes more evenly distributed. But for now there is a tangible sense of floundering about in the murk, not sure how to move forward, and that's a disconcerting feeling indeed.
Yup. That's why you need to write more frequently and get more visibility out there :) Thanks for the feedback.
To be fair as a carer for two special needs kids, I'm not a desirable hire to begin with.
That being said, I agree with a few of the points on the list - not all but a fair few.
I think I have been very lucky so far and don't want to seem ungrateful, but I am noticing many people especially just starting out feel undervalued and unseen even.
With people more interested in receiving a payout than reading a post, there is very little interaction - especially with new users who haven't built a following.
Those people feel like their work isn't appreciated and this alone could see new users quit, I convinced an author to come check out steemit he had 5 posts and now seems to have disappeared - he had very little interaction and basically no payouts.
It was really good writing and he may come back eventually, the point is in that window we lost the possibility of a great content creator - he didn't see the value yet.
We need to find a way to hook new users who may not be as familiar with cryptocurrencies and the current user base, because if we really want steemit to be the next big thing like twitter and facebook - we have to keep the new users here, and not have them feeling undervalued or ignored.
In my view we need to be looking more at bringing in new users of all kinds, once people understand and start getting rewarded for providing feedback and interacting on the site - steemit will really take over.
It just needs to be more user friendly, and take into consideration that for steemit to really take off - we need viewers/readers not just people here to create.
I think once we can incentivise being a viewer/reader the platform will blossom into its true potential.
My 2 cents worth if you dont mind.
How can a new comer be mentored, possibly pass a certification class, and possibly win\earn STEEM, SP, SBD towards an engaged user account?
That way hopefully lowering the turn over rate and keeping the steemit account active or non active if the new comer no longer participates. The norm of what 24 months of no activity would possibly automatically release left over funds back into the system.
There are a few places where you can get mentored now, however it can be hard to point new users towards them at first - so we could work on that a bit. steemprentice on steemitchat is a great place fro new users to start.
There are lots of comps around and usually tagged as such so again, just a need to point new users at them for easier rewards and interaction within the community. For example @pappapepper seems to always have a contest of some sort open, it's really great for community engagement.
I do however have to say I don't think there is any chance anyone on here would go for automatically terminating accounts when an account has been inactive for even two years, I think people would see it as a theft of earned funds - for example if you don't use your savings account for a while and the bank closes it and kept the money, would you be ok with that?
Plus without account keys I don't believe they can have access to the accounts to dump the funds back, unlike the bank lol.
I think all new users should just try and jump in, if you don't want to post - read and comment this way people will really remember you.
Thanks for your input though it's always good to throw around ideas :)
Thank you Krystle for acknowledging, directing me, and providing your time. I have seen @papapepper contest and will eventually join in.
I do however, as well have to say I dont use any banks anymore after getting a notice of no activity after 24 months. Since I have been away that long, they did close my account. I did not have very much in that account, so really was no big deal. Maybe a certain threshold of STEEM, SP, SBD would be excusable and just the smaller dormant accounts should only be considered. Again, just my 2cents worth.
Now you are correct, and I foolishly forgot about the account keys...maybe an exception could be made to create\mint those unrecoverable funds back into the system cycle? I dont know...
I do know this! I am a new user. I have jumped in. I do want to post and have already started. And I read and comment as much as possible everyday. I welcome all new users to be BRAVE, but considerate.
Im honored to be able to be heard and noticed, it helps me engage, learn, and grow. :)
Steem on,
Frank
I guess reasons to leave steemit may depend on the time spent on the platform. New users may have an information deficit, come with extremely high expectations which won´t be fulfilled afterwards and then leave, for instance. That´s a complete different perspective to the one of an older user that may have developed a certain dissatisfaction during a larger period of time.
When quitting there are always two options: leaving something behind and actively deciding against something (negative experience) or going towards something new (positive experience). It would be nice asking users who stop being active on steemit for their reasons.
Personally i don't know what to do with the tags - it would be much easier if they were in a pulldown list to choose from as I was writing my entry (understand that this might be difficult to use in current beta mode) or it would be really helpful could see the top 10 most commonly used tags on the right hand side of the submit a story format page so that I could know what is best to choose to get my entries noticed? otherwise i just make them up ;)
A couple more reasons I can think of for quitting:
why do I can't choose witness more than 30, though I have try as you say. However, he said the name no, what the problem! please help @krnel
Read at the top of the page, it says you have 30 votes only. That's how it is.
Thank you for the help
Superb post, Great analogies made
"Job" equals no freedom.
Awesome post. Thanks for the info @krnel
well, I still can't related to Steemit as I'm new and this is the first Post I read, and by the way, it's like "magic" or karma maybe? Because I've just quited my job yesterday for the next reasons: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 <--BINGO, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 17, 21, 22.... of course, based on your list.
The biggest lesson I can only think about right now, no matter if I'm still a lot mad at my boss (ex-boss), is that I definitely know now what NOT to do if I get to lead a team in the future again.
Thanks for the content!!!