Happy people leave jobs they love all the time. Not everyone is an in-demand tech genius with no life outside their career. Not everyone has a buddy at another company who can promise a job. People leave jobs they love every day not because they want to, but because they have to.
Real people have real families. Kids grow. Parents age. Sisters have car accidents. Dogs rip their ACLs. At any moment any realworld person may have to walk away from the job they love to accommodate the needs of a family member. Maybe they need to go to a higher-paying job (if they are lucky) but more realistically they need a job at a different location or time so they can spend more time dealing with things totally outside the job.
Real people have real bodies. They get sick. They have heart attacks. They get devastating news from doctors. They need to spend less time at the keyboard and more time at the gym. The job you love, that you are willing to spend 24/7 working to improve, is often the job that is killing you.
Want to keep employees onboard? They want two things more than anything else: Either more money, fewer hours for the same money, or some balance between the two. That's what keeps people from leaving. It allows flexibility when that day comes that they would otherwise have to walk. Everything else is just icing on the cake.
I agree 100% on your point about flexibility. I personally value three things : fair compensation (both because I know I'm good and because I don't like to let people make a number on me), the company's mission and it's flexibility.
The first two are obvious. The way I see the third one is that I prefer when a company respects my life, value entrepreneurial mindsets, and will let me accommodate the evolution of my personal projects over time. Too many companies want to own your life and influence your lifestyle. They have a one-sided approach to employment.
I once met a different kind of employer. I told him I was passionate about something and left my job a few months before to start a startup that was at the time already on the market. He asked me if I wanted to work part-time of full-time, if I wanted to be on the payroll or if I'd preferred to invoice the company, and if I wanted to work from home or to commute.
This is the sort of company one wouldn't leave for sure, and it really triggers a deep sense of loyalty. Respect and flexibility are the key things.
> I once met a different kind of employer. I told him I was passionate about something and left my job a few months before to start a startup that was at the time already on the market. He asked me if I wanted to work part-time of full-time, if I wanted to be on the payroll or if I'd preferred to invoice the company, and if I wanted to work from home or to commute.
These sorts of managers/founders/owners/clients are worth their weight in gold; I follow these people to the gates of hell with suntan location in hand.
I'm calling this the "It's not all about you" principle - the "you" being a person's employer. The OP article reads as if jobs are all about the employer, when there's also the employee's life that overrides any and all things that the employer has to offer.
I'd say more money or fewer hours will keep people onboard but only despite other problems. The other problems will still persist and they will adapt to the new lifestyle of more time/money they will take it for granted, but the niggling desires will still be there pushing them to another job.
"Either more money, fewer hours for the same money, or some balance between the two."
You're probably right that this probably how most people are motivated. I think the OP is talking about high-performing people at technology companies, who aren't mostly motivated by short-term pay rate or leisure time. They tend to be the best people precisely because they have more drive to succeed in the long-term than collect the best near-term paycheck or maximize leisure time. The best people in these companies could make more money for less work right now-- if they wanted to.
I'm not actually saying that's always (or even usually) a good thing-- the most common deathbed regret is working too much.
High-performers are still human beings. They still have families. They still get sick.
Harry Potter-type orphans with no living relatives and a magical ability to avoid disease are out there somewhere. Potter even had a trust fund that meant pay was not an issue. But an employer cannot bet on finding and keeping such people. Worse yet, trying to attract mythic people leads down dangerous roads. There are laws against seeking to hire or promote only single/healthy/non-disabled/sterile/rich people. If you run a workforce involving people you must accept that people are going to have unique problems and that pay will matter when those problems inevitably crop up.
Real people have real families. Kids grow. Parents age. Sisters have car accidents. Dogs rip their ACLs. At any moment any realworld person may have to walk away from the job they love to accommodate the needs of a family member. Maybe they need to go to a higher-paying job (if they are lucky) but more realistically they need a job at a different location or time so they can spend more time dealing with things totally outside the job.
Real people have real bodies. They get sick. They have heart attacks. They get devastating news from doctors. They need to spend less time at the keyboard and more time at the gym. The job you love, that you are willing to spend 24/7 working to improve, is often the job that is killing you.
Want to keep employees onboard? They want two things more than anything else: Either more money, fewer hours for the same money, or some balance between the two. That's what keeps people from leaving. It allows flexibility when that day comes that they would otherwise have to walk. Everything else is just icing on the cake.