During this period, employees were challenged, but expectations for performance were relatively low. .
Next, there is the period where the person becomes settled in. This may be a short period or long, depending on the employee, but is characterized by some stability in terms of ones life in the job. Not a lot of new information is learned by employees about the job or organization during this period. For many employees, this was a period in which dissatisfaction seemed to set in. Employees that had started strong in providing customer service began to lose the enthusiasm they had initially displayed. As time went on, these employees lapsed into a third recognizable period. This final period was marked by increased disinterest and withdrawal preceding voluntary or involuntary turnover. For many, it manifested in behavioral issues such as absenteeism or tardiness for work. Both actions resulted in involuntary separation from Lowe's employment after only two or three incidents. Knowing that management would tolerate neither of these incidents was no deterrent to employees once they entered this stage either. .
We tried to find common denominators for what was causing this anomaly. It was manifest primarily in the ranks of the hourly wage employees. The hardest hit area of the store was consistently the night stocking team. They had a good manager, and he worked right alongside the team. This was a critical area to store operations, and when the number of team members was down, the remaining crew had to work that much harder to unload trucks, and sometimes the merchandise did not get properly stocked. When employees were asked why they were leaving, a variety of reasons were given, for example, a desire to return to school, or the scheduled work hours were not flexible enough for individual situations such as attendance at church. Reasons were seldom because the employee felt too much was expected of them, even though grumblings to that effect were more and more frequently overheard in the employee break room.