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Poor Management Can Sabotage Retention Efforts
By Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden
Eavesdropping can be very enlightening.
In the short time it takes to travel by courtesy shuttle from the Atlanta airport terminal to the rental car lot, I learned almost enough about my two fellow passengers' company to submit a consulting proposal.
The conversation between the two women, obviously with the same employer, but in different cities, went almost word for word like this:
"So what's the story with Jeffrey?"
"He just showed up last Thursday and said he'd had it. He was outta there!"
"Was it a surprise?"
"It's never a surprise when someone leaves anymore. (Our boss) is a total jerk. He's practically cleared out the whole department in the last year."
"Why do you stay?"
"Easy. The money. They're paying me more than I could get anywhere else. That's the only way they can get anyone to work for the guy." She laughed like Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction." "It's obscene. But I'll take it."
I like honesty in a person.
Sadly, this company has probably sent its Human Resources Department off on a quest to figure out how to increase employee retention. The emissaries will likely come back with recommendations to deploy all sorts of expensive programs, including some way-out benefits that sound good but will have few takers. And all the while, the real solution may lie in the quality of its managers.
Look for these signs of a manager costing your organization talent, ideas, commitment, and, more importantly, profit:
He's always had a hard time finding "good employees." No matter whom he brings in, they're never really up to snuff. Rather than hiring talent and temperament and then developing skills, he's expecting "off-the-rack" workers in which he won't have to invest much attention. He costs you a lot in hiring and training.
She experiences higher voluntary turnover in her area than in neighboring departments doing similar work. She costs you a lot in unemployment insurance, among other things. People rarely transfer into his department from within the company, but there are frequent requests for transfers out. As a result, this department is drained of experienced workers and becomes a depository for employees new to the company.
Ironically, this is the last place inexperienced workers should be, and in the absence of good leadership, the turnover cycle proceeds with increased velocity. She is the subject of frequent complaints about her management style. She has more than her share of union grievances filed against her. Your Human Resources Department knows her better than they'd like to. Even well run organizations sometimes have a pocket or two with unusually high turnover, low productivity, miserable morale. Pay attention to those pockets.
A few years ago, Jack Welch, General Electric's chief executive officer, identified four types of managers and took action. See if you recognize any of these in your organization:
Type I: Not only delivers on performance commitments, but believes in and furthers GE's people oriented values. These are GE's future senior leaders.
Type II: Doesn't meet commitments or share the company's values -- or last long at GE.
Type III: Believes in the values, but sometimes misses commitments. Because GE encourages taking swings, Type IIIs are typically given another chance.
Type IV: The tough one. GE's leaders admit it's tempting to look the other way with these mismanagers, because they deliver short-term results. But they do so by grinding people down, squeezing them, stifling them.
Says Welch, "Some of these learned to change; most couldn't. The decision to begin removing Type IVs was a watershed -- the ultimate test of our ability to walk the talk."
It's not just the damage these Type IVs do within their departments. Greater destruction, by far, occurs elsewhere in the organization, when people see this type of behavior tolerated or encouraged.
The glaring inconsistency involving even just a few will undermine the valiant work of the majority.
If you're a senior manager or business owner and you discover a couple of bully bosses in your organization, you owe it to them (and everyone else) to be very clear about your commitment to people-oriented management. If they choose not to sign on, invite them to find their success elsewhere. Do it professionally and humanely, but do it.
Please print the following attribution for this article: Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden, co-authors of Contented Cows Give Better Milk, help clients clobber the competition by having a focused, fired up, and capably led workforce. They deliver powerful conference keynotes and leadership training. They can be reached at 800-940-7006 (+1-904-720-0870 from outside North America) or www.ContentedCows.com.