A recent story linked on HN that sadly didn't get much attention was that companies are in a crisis of not knowing what they can do to stop their employees from

A recent story linked on HN that sadly didn't get much attention was that companies are in a crisis of not knowing what they can do to stop their employees from quitting. Glib answers like "pay them more" and "treat them better" aren't helpful because many of these are high paid jobs and everyone has a difference of opinion on what it means to be treated well (even if most will agree that being punched in the face all day is bad). Companies cannot get employees to tell them what they want. Exit interviews are mostly fruitless, surveys are avoided because workers don't believe they're truly anonymous, outside surveys have the same problem since the survey company is being paid by the employer. How can a company get honest feedback from their employees without the employees fearing reprisals? A union is one way of doing it since employees (usually) trust their union to take their grievances to the employer with little risk to the employees as individuals or as a group. There was a case a few years ago where a European company opened a factory in the right-to-work state and wanted its workers in a union because that's how it maintained employee relations in their home country. They were confused by the hostility towards unions in that state, both by workers and by the government. IIRC, it was semi-skilled manufacturing so exploiting the workers would be self-defeating if they kept leaving for other jobs.