Why top employees quit

Here's a link to a post on a blog that I have become fond of the last few weeks -- it presents facts on why top producers of companies leave. Interesting to note that about half of the people in the study left due to wanting more pay. More interesting, however, is that these top performers were not at the max salary in terms of the company pay structure.

The point is that the company failed to see the signs. They could have kept a top performer merely by giving him a significant pay raise, rather than the seemingly rote 2-3% given out these days at performance review time.

Who cares if he got 20%? The benefits to the company are manifold -- you kept a top performer, you didn't have to interview, evaluate, train, mentor, mold, hand-hold a new employee that you would have paid more than your current person anyway, who might not have lasted through the probationary period, etc. In short, by limiting themselves to rules-based performance reviews, companies shoot themselves in the feet when they needn't.