Revolving Doors; Or, How I Keep Losing Employees

I know the fact I have attrition on my team isn't going to require any sort of quantum leap in thinking since I've complained about my employees (mainly their ridiculous attitudes), our co-workers, and the general nimrodery of our workplace. But I lost another one today, and while it wasn't totally surprising, it's sort of rocked me a bit and I've been left wondering what it is I am doing to drive employees away.

I tend to be the sort of manager I think I'd want - I am utterly hands-off unless I really need to be in your business about something. And I think most of the team seems to thrive in that. But managing people, by definition, means you do occasionally have to get in their business and get into the details of how they're doing (or not doing) their jobs, how they're scheduling (or not scheduling) their time, and how they're making progress (or not making progress) towards hitting their utilization numbers (yes, we are a services organization, and so we actually have to record down to the .25 hour our billable time...and you start to understand the fun that is my job). I actually really quite passionately hate these aspects of my job. I hate being the process-Nazi who insists people follow rules, adhere to procedures, and fill out forms. I'm quite sure people probably call me "Lumberg" behind my back and think I get my jollies off of TPS reports. But if they don't follow these rules, then I can't do my job. And since I control a big pool of resources, there are all sorts of repurcussions to me not doing my job for a lot of people.

But I would be happiest if I could just go work in a little cubicle each day, be responsible for my own little piece of work, have no responsibility to or for anyone else, and promptly clock out at 5pm.

Or, you know what, I'd be happy if I had a job that had some semblance of meaning or value to the world and not just to the private equity firm that owns my company. I used to be a teacher...of literature...to students who actually cared about reading and what they thought about what they read and how it made them feel and how it opened them up to some new way of looking at the world or themselves. Those days feel like they were about a million lifetimes ago.

Now I'm just too busy trying to find replacements for the people on my team who leave and who I, quite possibly, have driven to do so.