Alex Papadimoulis on the Mechanics of Quitting

Employees – especially the most talented ones – are not “dating around” and moving from place to place in search of the Perfect Company at which they can grow old and retire at. They’ve already aced the first four rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy and are in search of self-actualization: the instinctual need of humans to make the most of their abilities and to strive to be the best they can.

This point bears repeating. Indefinite retention is impossible; employees always quit. The key part is understanding why, and how to leverage this inevitability towards everyone’s advantage.

Alex Papadimoulis of The Daily WTF fame has written a somewhat provocative and deeply insightful article on the challenges of retaining technical talent. If you are a “techie”, and you haven’t read it yet, you really should.