The Workplace Mirror: When employees leave, what are they comparing you to?

One thing workplaces quietly reveal over time is this: leaders and employees do not always see the same behaviour through the same lens.

Recently, I was speaking with a senior executive who expressed frustration about high employee turnover within the organisation. As the conversation unfolded, he arrived at a conclusion I have heard many times before: “Young people want money, but they do not want to work”.

I understood why the explanation felt reasonable. After all, employees were leaving, positions needed to be refilled, and the turnover numbers supported his frustration. Yet as I listened, I found myself wondering whether he was looking in the wrong direction.

Over the years, I have met many young professionals who were willing to work exceptionally hard in environments where they felt respected, developed, challenged, and valued. Perhaps the question is not always whether people are running from work. Sometimes they are running from the experience of work. And those are not the same thing.

That conversation reminded me of a young professional whose career journey has often fascinated me. Long before entering the workforce, she had been exposed to conversations about leadership, professionalism, accountability, workplace culture, and organisational behaviour. Through observation and experience, she developed strong ideas about what healthy workplaces looked like and how leaders should behave.

When she entered the workforce, she did not arrive as a blank slate. She arrived with reference points. She knew what professionalism looked like. She knew what accountability looked like. She knew what respectful leadership looked like. Like many professionals, she began evaluating her experiences against what she had already learned.

Years later, she attended an interview where an HR professional questioned why she had moved between several organisations early in her career. The implication was clear. Movement was being interpreted as instability. As I reflected on that conversation afterwards, I realised I was seeing something different. The interviewer saw movement. I saw comparison. The interviewer saw someone who had not settled. I saw someone searching for an environment that aligned with what she knew work could be.

That does not mean every organisation she left was unhealthy, nor does it mean every expectation she carried was correct. However, it reminded me of something leaders sometimes overlook: employees experience workplaces through the lens of what has shaped them.

Some employees arrive having worked in organisations where accountability was consistently applied. Others have experienced exceptional leaders who developed, challenged, and inspired them. Some learned professionalism from mentors, teachers, parents, or previous workplaces. Others have known environments where dysfunction became normal. As a result, two employees can experience the exact same workplace very differently. One sees normal; the other sees warning signs. One accepts; the other questions. One stays; the other leaves.

Neither employee arrives empty. They simply arrive with different reference points.

This may be one of the more overlooked realities of employee turnover. When leaders see employees leaving, they often focus on the decision itself. What they do not always examine is the comparison taking place beneath it. Before people leave organisations, they often evaluate them. Consciously or unconsciously, they compare what they are experiencing with what they believe work should feel like, what leadership should look like, what accountability should look like, and what respect should look like.

Sometimes what appears to be dissatisfaction is actually misalignment between the workplace people are experiencing and the workplace they believe is possible.

This does not mean organisations should change every time an employee disagrees with how things are done. Nor does it mean every departing employee is right. But it does suggest that leaders may benefit from asking a different question.

Instead of asking, “Why are employees leaving?” perhaps we should sometimes ask, “What reference points are employees comparing us against?” because employees do not always leave because they have stopped believing in work. Sometimes they leave because they still do.

The Workplace Mirror Reflection: Workplaces do not only function, they reflect.

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