Someone offers you more money — and you still stay. Why?
Good conditions, remote work, benefits, new opportunities — all of that has long become standard in the market.
27% of the Trading Space team have been with us for more than two years. And it got us thinking: what actually makes people stay when there are always new opportunities around?
From what I’ve seen, conditions matter. But when we’re talking about staying for the long run, they’re only part of the answer.
When work is about more than the conditions
People want to understand why they’re here. That what they do every day matters, that their opinion can make a difference, and that they’re not stuck in one place.
A manager often has a huge impact on what your experience at a company will be.
I once heard a phrase at a workshop: “People join companies, but leave managers.” The longer I work, the more I find myself agreeing with it.
It’s important to have a trusting relationship with your manager and see them as a professional. When the first challenges come up — at work, in your development, or anywhere else — your manager should be there to help you work through them and find the right way forward.
Regular feedback, including developmental feedback, the freedom to make mistakes and grow, support and opportunities to develop — all of this affects whether a person sees the company as more than just a workplace.
But perhaps culture shows itself best not when everything is going well. It shows when something stops working.
Sometimes changing the role is better than changing the person
💡A colleague had been with the company for several years and was very loyal, but her performance had significantly declined over the last year.
We had 1:1s, tried to help and support her, but there were no significant changes.
In that situation, we could have simply said goodbye. Instead, we decided to try a different path: we offered her a sabbatical so she could rest, recharge, and think about what she wanted her next step to look like.
After she returned, we found a role for her in another team that matched her strengths. Now everything is going well: she’s happy with her work and performing well.
Sometimes the result means telling someone that their performance isn’t good enough. The question is how you do it — and what you do next.
In this case, the next step wasn’t letting her go, but finding another role where she could perform well again.
Sometimes people want to leave a role, not the company
💭 Here’s another example: an internal transfer.
A colleague moved to another team because he wanted to try himself in a new role. The opportunity was there.
After a month of probation, it became clear that the role wasn’t the right fit for him. We offered him the opportunity to return to his previous team, this time with an additional area of responsibility.
Today, he’s performing really well and feels like he’s in the right place.
Sometimes an internal move isn’t about finding a new growth opportunity. It’s about realizing that the role you had before was actually the right one for you.
And both of these stories come down to some pretty simple things
People want to feel that they matter — to understand that what they do every day is valuable and contributes to the team’s and company’s goals.
They want their opinions to count and to feel that they can actually influence processes and decisions. And it matters to have a team where you can be yourself.
When you’re in a bad mood or something has happened, you should be able to say it instead of pretending everything is fine and then going to cry in the bathroom 😓
When you have people around who will support you and understand, it becomes easier to deal with even the toughest tasks. And when you genuinely like your team, you want to spend time together outside of work, share memes, hang out. That’s how that invisible “red thread” between people starts to form.
High standards and being human can coexist
We have high expectations, high standards, and a fast pace of work. And we don’t believe high standards are incompatible with being human.
You can expect results, give tough feedback, and talk openly about what isn’t working — without losing sight of the person behind it. You can say, “This result isn’t good enough,” and at the same time ask, “What do we need to change to make it different next time?”
A strong culture isn’t one where you’re always comfortable. And it definitely isn’t one where results matter less than comfort.
It’s a culture where a lot is expected from you, but when something isn’t working, you’re not reduced to a single metric. And maybe that’s what ultimately makes people want to stay 🙌
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