In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Superbosses author Sydney Finkelstein argues that some of the most successful leaders encourage their top-performing talent to leave. He also observes that some of the most transformative executives have the shortest tenures at the companies they reshape.
The reason, Finkelstein says, is simple: It’s difficult to acquire and hold onto outsize talent, but far better to house it within your organization for a short time than not at all. Rather than fight turnover, companies may do better to embrace it—and instead focus on improving the quality of the people who cycle through its doors, as opposed to reducing the quantity of those who do.
THE CASE FOR BUILDING AN EXIT DOOR AND OPENING IT WIDE
This a concept my own company is taking to heart. After all, more money and bigger titles can only go so far, particularly for talented employees who aren’t primarily motivated by extrinsic incentives like those. Sometimes the next level up simply doesn’t match an employee’s aspirations, skills, or career timetable.
So the best thing for an employer to do is to help them find another great opportunity, instead of pouring time and resources into trying (and failing) to get them to stay. The companies that succeed will build reputations for launching leaders’ careers, which can help them attract the next wave of promising talent.
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That’s the theory, anyway, that recently led us to formalize the exit route as a key part of our staffing plan. The way it works is this: Throughout their tenures, we ask our employees to consider (and reconsider) their desired career goals for the next five to 10 years. We discuss possible paths to help them achieve those goals, and the skills and experiences they’ll need to acquire along the way.
Because we hire many younger professionals with limited work experience, we often have to invest heavily in developing their skills and expertise. Generally speaking, we hope that all high performers will stay with us for at least three years, both so our investment will pay off and so they’ll have time to thoughtfully consider what they want next in their careers. After that period, though, we work with them on advancement opportunities—inside the company and out.
To do that, we work with our employees to define three potential paths: two within the firm and one beyond it. If they choose the exit route, we make introductions to potential employers, serve as references, write LinkedIn recommendations, and even coach employees through the search process. Sure, these are resources we could be putting into retention efforts instead, but the preliminary results suggest we’re doing the right thing.
WHAT COMPANIES GAIN BY HELPING EMPLOYEES MOVE ON
Here are a few of the benefits we’ve already begun to see.
Increased employee engagement and retention. Being able to openly discuss career routes is a great relief for many employees, and this openness contributes to a supportive, transparent culture. The program also encourages managers to think more like career coaches than micromanagers preoccupied by short-term needs. Managers learn how to engage with team members in thoughtful, authentic ways, building trust and loyalty and improving overall employee engagement.
And since managers actually understand their employees’ career objectives, we’re better equipped to assign meatier projects—even if they’re not directly tied to employees’ roles—to help them build their desired skills. This can help increase the odds that our most talented employees stick around longer, because they feel valued and see tangible advantages to doing so.
More predictable succession planning and smoother transitions. When exit paths are discussed forthrightly, managers can gain more time to plan employees’ departures. There’s plenty of runway to document all their projects and processes. There’s also more time to think carefully about contact changes for customers and partners, making the handover smoother and more thoughtfully carried out.
Outgoing employees benefit as well, getting to leave the company on a high note, feeling celebrated, appreciated, and grateful to the company for helping them land their next big role. Nobody’s blindsided or left feeling bitter.
Employer branding and recruiting benefits. In the age of Glassdoor, Yelp, and Quora, it’s more important than ever that employees leave feeling like their time with an employer was well spent. Companies that have built reputations not just for hiring well but for supporting talented people can get a major recruiting boost. Former employees are potentially some of your most powerful assets—people you can leverage for referrals or even consider rehiring later in their careers.
It’s far from intuitive for most companies to invest heavily in recruiting and professional development, only to actively facilitate employees’ departures. But after years of thoughtfully considering our employees’ needs as well as our own, we’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes the best path forward is out.
https://www.firstsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Free-Lock-on-Fence.jpg11001650First Sun Teamhttps://www.firstsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/logo-min-300x123.jpgFirst Sun Team2016-10-26 12:39:022020-09-30 20:50:20#Leadership : Why My Company Started Helping Our Best Employees Quit…This Company Sits Down with Every Employee who’s Stayed for Three Years to Plan their Career Options—within the Firm and Without.
Employee compensation can be an emotional subject, especially if you’re the employee. It is often daintily tiptoed around in interviews and loudly complained about in bars. Personally, I’m a firm believer that compensation is a reflection of an employee’s value to a company. As value goes up, so does pay.
When I express these opinions, however, I often get disgruntled rebuttals like, “Yeah, right. Corporations have no concept of loyalty”; “Layoffs are completely arbitrary—it doesn’t matter what you’re worth”; and, “The only way to get a raise is to change jobs!”
Since these complaints are made to me—the CEO of a company that clearly isn’t so callous—it’s obvious that these stereotypes cannot be universal. Putting aside this irony, though, even if every company in the world were as ruthless and coldblooded as some believe, value and compensation would still be inextricably connected. Let’s take a look at why this is the case and how you can increase your value as an employee to get paid what you deserve.
WHAT HAPPENS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Let’s be a fly on the wall in that dim, coffin-shaped room where lanky, black-suited business misers drum their spindly fingers together and cackle over that most evil of subjects: layoffs.
When they discuss the customer support floor, they decide they need to lay off one person, and gradually narrow the options down to two employees:
Option 1: “Bill” is an old-and-true company standby. He’s worked at the company for 20 years and has been completely faithful to his job expectations. He clocks in and out on time and delivers his customer support perfectly on script. As a result, he’s accumulated a number of raises over the years and now makes $20 an hour.
Option 2: “Shelly” has only worked in customer support for five years but has obtained advanced technical certifications, has an excellent interpersonal manner, and routinely turns upset customers into loyal patrons. Clients who get support from her are 30% more likely to purchase additional services and to refer friends.
She talks off script a fair amount but keeps track of what she says and how customers react. As a result, she has submitted many helpful modifications to the basic IT script, resulting in a 10% increase in customer satisfaction for the whole floor. Due to her high performance, Shelly also makes $20 per hour.
Which one gets the boot? It’s Bill without question.
The company is actually losing money on Bill. If they fired him, a new employee would work for only $12/hour and could read the script just as skillfully as Bill does within two weeks.
If Shelly were fired, however, the company would lose out on a major source of sales, referrals, customer satisfaction, and an internal system for improving the whole department—they can’t afford to lose her!
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VALUE IS NOT THE SAME THING AS YEARS ON THE JOB
But what about faithful old Bill? It would be so mean to fire him! Bill’s problem is that he hasn’t really done anything to justify his increased wages. Small raises have accumulated on his paycheck like moss on an old river rock, but his real value is still around $12 an hour.
However, since Bill has been working at the company for so many years, he probably “feels” like he’s worth $20 an hour. Never mind the fact that he couldn’t get paid $20 an hour at a different company, he’s “put in his time,” so he’s worth $20 an hour, right?
Now, I’m not trying to understate the value of experience and wisdom. Good employees learn and grow over time, so they provide more value for their employer. As a reward, they get raises. The problem is, those raises are often based on meeting minimum standards for specified periods of time—not the value an employee brings to the table. As a result, when push comes to shove and a company needs to actually evaluate the worth of an employee, “years on the job” means far less to the business than added value.
BUSINESSES PAY FOR VALUE, AND EMPLOYEES ARE THEIR ASSETS
Many employees are confused about what their salaries pay for. When people first enter the workforce as teenagers, they usually start with an hourly wage. The equation is simple: The more you work, the more money you get. Unfortunately, after a couple of years, many people begin to translate time into money and begin to think, “I’ve put in a lot of time at this job, so it stands to reason that I should be making a lot of money! I need a raise!”
Allow me to burst that bubble. Value isn’t a function of time. There are 24 hours in a day whether a company pays for them or not—it’s what you do with those hours that counts. Even for hourly employees, businesses aren’t paying for time—they’re paying for value. To put it simply, an employee is a company asset, and compensation is an investment in that asset.
Let me explain what I mean: If I were to invest $5,000 in a new asset for my business—say an online marketing account—you might think that I would have to make $5,000 in sales to justify the expense. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way. I won’t get too deep into the math of contribution margin, but in short, since my business expenses aren’t just limited to what I spend on marketing, it turns out that the account would have to make me at least three times my investment ($15,000) just to break even.
If the asset started producing four or five times more money than I put into it, then it would really be profitable. In fact, I’d be willing to invest more if I knew my payoff would be that good.
The same goes for employees: If I’m going to invest in people, I need to know that having them around will make my company at least three times what I’m paying them. The more revenue an employee drives for my business, the greater their value and the more I’m happy to pay to have them as an asset. An employee who produces less value, however, loses me money and—unless they can become more productive—I can’t afford to keep them in the long run.
Now, I think we’ve looked at things like a ruthless businessman for long enough to show why companies care about the value their employees bring to the table.
In most real businesses with real, warm-hearted people (like I try to be), the same principles are still at play, but the focus is more on encouraging employees to become more valuable than on eliminating dead weight. In general, this encouragement comes in the form of salary. The more value an employee brings to the table, the more they deserve to be paid. The question then becomes, how do employees increase their value?
There are three basic steps:
Ensure that you’re meeting the basic expectations of your job.
Identify areas where you can add more value.
Create and execute a plan to exceed expectations.
Step 1: Meet expectations. Before you start trying to expand your horizons, it’s a good idea to make sure that you’re at least fulfilling the minimum requirements of your role.
Of course, it can sometimes be hard to figure out what those requirements are. A recent Gallup poll revealed that up to half of employees don’t really understand what is expected of them at work. Many companies have very little in the way of formal job descriptions. Others have long lists of tasks and expectations around hiring time, but when you start the job you find that half the stuff on the list you never do and half the stuff you do isn’t on the list.
So if you’re not sure what your job expectations really are, the easiest way to get that question answered is to talk to your manager. Havea discussion about what workplace success looks like. You might even ask how your position adds value to the company. This gives you a target for increasing your value later on.
If, in this discussion, you discover work expectations that you weren’t aware of or that you haven’t been meeting, your first priority should be to start meeting those expectations. You may also find that, as Gallup’s poll also suggests, somemanagers are just as confused about your role as you are. If this describes your supervisors, then a sit-down conversation is especially important. Defining together what your core responsibilities are will help them to know when you are exceeding expectations.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Related: 5 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Your Annual Performance Review]
Step 2: Find areas in which to excel. As part of your conversation, you should also determine a list of projects that could add extra value to the company that fall within the scope of your job.
It’s important to choose these projects in conjunction with your manager because you need to be sure that when you go above and beyond, it’s in areas that your company finds important. What’s more, you want your extra efforts to be recognized for what they are.
It’s helpful at this stage to come up with a way to document your performance. Remember Shelly—how she increased customer satisfaction by 10% and got 30% more referrals than average? These numbers make her value pretty undeniable, but they wouldn’t exist if she or her managers weren’t keeping track of them.
If you work in an area like sales, it’s pretty easy to document your performance with hard figures, but for many other jobs performance is less easy to quantify. Documentation is still important in these cases, but it may look a little different. For example, this is a scorecard my marketing director and I use to measure his performance each month (shared with his permission):
The first column contains a list of his basic job expectations. If he meets all of these he’s producing enough value to justify his base salary. The other two columns contain things that he can do to go above and beyond his normal duties to provide added value to the company.
This is a very simple documentation system, but it’s surprisingly effective. When it comes time for me to hand out bonuses and raises, I don’t have to wonder whether he’s earned it or not—I just look at the scorecard. If he’s consistently performing above expectations, then he’s adding extra value and he deserves to be rewarded.
Step 3: Make a plan and execute it. Finally, you need to put everything you’ve learned into action. If your goal is to increase your compensation at work, you can start by deciding how much more you would like to be making.
Take your current job expectations and salary as the baseline for what you’re worth to the company. Then realize that for every dollar that you hope to get in increased pay, you need to bring in three to five dollars to the business for your raise to make sense. Pick from your “above and beyond” list some projects that would add this kind of value to the company. Make a plan to complete these goals in addition to your regular tasks and present the plan to your manager.
Trust me, this will go over a lot better than the old, “I’m getting married so I need a raise” conversation. Your manager may not agree with every detail of your plan, but you will definitely come off as a motivated employee who really gets it. And even if your managers don’t buy in right away, it will be a great opportunity to discuss their priorities again and work together to come up with a plan that accomplishes things that really matter.
Don’t skip this important conversation. I’d hate to get a comment on this article saying, “I wasted six months doing what you said only to find out that nobody cared about my contribution.”
If you haven’t figured out by now, communication with your superiors is going to be a critical part of this whole process. Unfortunately, business plans are rarely static and you may have to chase a moving target, but if you’re willing to be flexible, you should be able to keep moving forward toward your goals.
Now, I know you’re probably thinking, “This all sounds great, Jacob, but it also sounds a little too idealistic. It would never work at my business.” Maybe not. I can’t predict every circumstance, and there’s a chance that yours is an exception. But isn’t it worth a try? The relationship between employee value and compensation holds just as true in “big ruthless corporations” as it does in more supportive ones.
For example, one of my employees recently related to me his experience at a prior company. This was one of those more stingy jobs and had a high turnover rate for entry-level employees. However, he applied the principles I’ve described. He developed a number of specialized skills and got deeply involved in some really important projects.
The miserly company was happy to be getting more out of him for the same pay—until the day he started looking at taking his skills elsewhere. His value was so great by then that the company would be set back months or years if he left, so when he suggested that he would need a 40% pay increase to stay, they felt like it was a worthwhile investment.
Despite the money-grubbing attitude of this company, he was providing so much value that he had become an asset they couldn’t afford to lose. As a result, he was able to negotiate a much better situation for himself. The moral of the story? If you feel that you deserve a raise, don’t get drunk and holler about it every Friday night. Take inventory of your worth, talk with your managers, and start working to become a more valuable asset.
https://www.firstsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/logo-min-300x123.jpg00First Sun Teamhttps://www.firstsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/logo-min-300x123.jpgFirst Sun Team2016-10-12 12:15:592020-09-30 20:50:30Your #Career : I’m A CEO—Here’s How I Decide Whether To Give You A Raise Or Lay You Off… This Exec Reveals the Arithmetic Companies Typically Use to Assess Employees’ Value.
The boss-employee relationship can be a precarious one. Even the best managers may have difficulty communicating at times, especially if anemployee’s behavior is frustrating. Whether you’ve been at your job for a few months or more than a decade, it’s important to realize that your words make a big difference in how your boss perceives you.
Here are a few phrases you should avoid.
1. “That isn’t my job.”
You may have a very specific job description, but employees excel by doing whatever it takes to make an employer succeed. Always be ready to do more than expected or learn how to do something new. The result could be more job stability.
2. “I’ll quit if…”
Ultimatums tend to come across as threats, which likely won’t get the results you want. You may even find your boss calling your bluff, sending you straight to the unemployment line.
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3.“I can’t come in today.”
An occasional sick day is to be expected but over time, a pattern of calling in can become a problem, whether it’s due to childcare issues, your own ongoing illnesses or just because you don’t feel like it.
4. “I can’t afford to pay my bills.”
Frankly, it’s not your boss’s problem that you can afford things or not. When you accepted your position, you agreed to a salary, which may or may not have increased over time. Your employer’s sole responsibility is to issue that salary in the form of a paycheck.
5. “I’m just here to earn a paycheck.”
It really isn’t smart to mention this, whether it’s true or not. Employees who go the extra mile and put the needs of the business first will be at the front of the line for raises or promotions. Also, get a hold of yourself and go find a job that you have some passion for, if you find that you are always “phoning it in” at work.
When something goes wrong, avoid playing the blame game and instead focus on how you can work as part of a team to make things right.
7. “My last boss did it differently.”
Whether you’re talking about your previous employer or your boss’s predecessor, this information is irrelevant. Your current boss has every right to come up with a new approach.
8. “I can’t.”
In general, you should strike the word “can’t” from your vocabulary, but this is especially true when your boss asks you to do something. Always show a willingness to give your best effort.
9. “You didn’t tell me to do that.”
Even if your boss neglected to mention something, pointing that out won’t win you any points. Instead take the high road and promise to get right on whatever task needs to be done.
10. “I’m so sleepy.”
Even if you’ve been up all night working or caring for your infant, your boss doesn’t need to know about it.
Comparing yourself to coworkers only makes you look petty and jealous. Instead highlight your own attributes and impress your boss by executing your duties well. Avoid pointing out any preferential treatment you believe others may be getting.
12. “Sorry I’m late — I had a job interview.”
It may seem crazy, but this happens more than you might think. No matter how strong your relationship is with a supervisor, there’s no need to mention this. If you choose to look for a job, do so behind the scenes, during lunch breaks or after hours.
13. “I’m bored.”
Instead of complaining about your empty to-do list, look around for ways you can help others lighten their workload. If you’re ready for more responsibility, let your boss know you want to tackle additional challenges and name specific things you’d like to learn.
14. “You’re wrong.”
At some point in your working relationship, your superior will be wrong. When that happens, point it out diplomatically, using words like, “I might be mistaken, but I thought…” instead of bluntly insulting your boss. If you correct your boss the right way, they may end up respecting and trusting you more.
15. “I quit.”
No matter how hard things get, never utter those two words in the heat of the moment. Always resign with two-weeks’ notice and only after you have a plan for replacing your income. More than that, look for a job or a team of people that won’t leave you on the edge of quitting so easily.
Communication is essential to career success. When you’re trying to impress your boss, it’s important to know the right words to use. Even a small, offhand statement could send the wrong message, damaging your career for years. Remember, if you’re not sure whether what you’re about to say may be received well, give it a second thought. You may just need to rephrase it, or keep your mouth shut.
Entrepreneur.com | September 20, 2016 | John Boitnott
https://www.firstsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/logo-min-300x123.jpg00First Sun Teamhttps://www.firstsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/logo-min-300x123.jpgFirst Sun Team2016-09-23 15:54:352020-09-30 20:50:41#Leadership : 15 Things Your Boss Is Tired of Hearing…Communication is Essential to Career Success. When you’re Trying to Impress your Boss, it’s Important to Know the Right Words to Use. Even a Small, Offhand Statement Could Send the Wrong Message, Damaging your Career for Years.
It’s tough to hold on to good employees, but it shouldn’t be. Most of the mistakes that companies make are easily avoided. When you do make mistakes, your best employees are the first to go, because they have the most options.
If you can’t keep your best employees engaged, you can’t keep your best employees. While this should be common sense, it isn’t common enough. A survey by CEB found that one-third of star employees feel disengaged from their employer and are already looking for a new job.
When you lose good employees, they don’t disengage all at once. Instead, their interest in their jobs slowly dissipates. Michael Kibler, who has spent much of his career studying this phenomenon, refers to it as brownout. Like dying stars, star employees slowly lose their fire for their jobs.
“Brownout is different from burnout because workers afflicted by it are not in obvious crisis,”Kibler said. “They seem to be performing fine: putting in massive hours, grinding out work while contributing to teams, and saying all the right things in meetings. However, they are operating in a silent state of continual overwhelm, and the predictable consequence is disengagement.”
In order to prevent brownout and to retain top talent, companies and managers must understand what they’re doing that contributes to this slow fade. The following practices are the worst offenders, and they must be abolished if you’re going to hang on to good employees.
1. They make a lot of stupid rules.
Companies need to have rules—that’s a given—but they don’t have to be shortsighted and lazy attempts at creating order. Whether it’s an overzealous attendance policy or taking employees’ frequent flier miles, even a couple of unnecessary rules can drive people crazy. When good employees feel like big brother is watching, they’ll find someplace else to work.
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2. They treat everyone equally.
While this tactic works with school children, the workplace ought to function differently. Treating everyone equally shows your top performers that no matter how high they perform (and, typically, top performers are work horses), they will be treated the same as the bozo who does nothing more than punch the clock.
3. They tolerate poor performance.
It’s said that in jazz bands, the band is only as good as the worst player; no matter how great some members may be, everyone hears the worst player. The same goes for a company. When you permit weak links to exist without consequence, they drag everyone else down, especially your top performers.
4. They don’t recognize accomplishments.
It’s easy to underestimate the power of a pat on the back, especially with top performers who are intrinsically motivated. Everyone likes kudos, none more so than those who work hard and give their all. Rewarding individual accomplishments shows that you’re paying attention. Managers need to communicate with their people to find out what makes them feel good (for some, it’s a raise; for others, it’s public recognition) and then to reward them for a job well done. With top performers, this will happen often if you’re doing it right.
5. They don’t care about people.
More than half the people who leave their jobs do so because of their relationship with their boss. Smart companies make certain that their managers know how to balance being professional with being human. These are the bosses who celebrate their employees’ successes, empathize with those going through hard times, and challenge them, even when it hurts. Bosses who fail to really care will always have high turnover rates. It’s impossible to work for someone for eight-plus hours a day when they aren’t personally involved and don’t care about anything other than your output.
6. They don’t show people the big picture.
It may seem efficient to simply send employees assignments and move on, but leaving out the big picture is a deal breaker for star performers. Star performers shoulder heavier loads because they genuinely care about their work, so their work must have a purpose. When they don’t know what that is, they feel alienated and aimless. When they aren’t given a purpose, they find one elsewhere.
7. They don’t let people pursue their passions.
Google mandates that employees spend at least 20% of their time doing “what they believe will benefit Google most.” While these passion projects make major contributions to marquis Google products, such as Gmail and AdSense, their biggest impact is in creating highly engaged Googlers. Talented employees are passionate. Providing opportunities for them to pursue their passions improves their productivity and job satisfaction, but many managers want people to work within a little box. These managers fear that productivity will decline if they let people expand their focus and pursue their passions. This fear is unfounded. Studies have shown that people who are able to pursue their passions at work experience flow, a euphoric state of mind that is five times more productive than the norm.
8. They don’t make things fun.
If people aren’t having fun at work, then you’re doing it wrong. People don’t give their all if they aren’t having fun, and fun is a major protector against brownout. The best companies to work for know the importance of letting employees loosen up a little. Google, for example, does just about everything it can to make work fun—free meals, bowling allies, and fitness classes, to name a few. The idea is simple: if work is fun, you’ll not only perform better, but you’ll stick around for longer hours and an even longer career.
Bringing It All Together
Managers tend to blame their turnover problems on everything under the sun while ignoring the crux of the matter: people don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.
What other mistakes cause great employees to leave? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.
https://www.firstsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Free-Bubble-on-the-Bubble.jpg11001650First Sun Teamhttps://www.firstsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/logo-min-300x123.jpgFirst Sun Team2016-09-07 12:53:472020-09-30 20:50:50#Leadership : 8 Bad Mistakes That Make Good Employees Leave…Managers Tend to Blame their Turnover Problems on Everything Under the Sun while Ignoring the Crux of the Matter: People Don’t Leave Jobs; They Leave Managers.
Depending on how you see it, there’s more than just death and taxes on the short list of things life throws at pretty much everybody. There’s also unfairness (which cynics might even see as the umbrella term for both death and taxes), as many a parent has informed a 5-year-old who’s too young to know what taxes are but has no trouble grasping what’s not fair.
But simply accepting that life isn’t fair doesn’t mean we respond to its injustices with perfect equanimity—especially where our careers are concerned. Maybe you’ve been passed up for a promotion you deserved. Or management made a big decision impacting your job without you having a say. Maybe you were just disrespected by a colleague.
Organizational researchers like the University of Georgia’s Jason Colquitt call these types of offenses “distributive,” “procedural,” and “interpersonal” injustice, respectively. And they’ve been linked to lower levels of self-esteem, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and performance.
That may not come as a shock—it’s just about impossible to avoid feeling mistreated at some point or another at work. Georgetown professor Chris Porathestimates that 98% of the thousands of workers she’s surveyed have experienced incivility at work firsthand, and 99% have seen it take place.
But the good news is that while work, like life, isn’t always fair, you don’t have to stew in your sense of being wronged. In fact, you can even use the experience to become a little more resilient for the next time you’re slighted. Here’s how.
WHY UNFAIR TREATMENT STINGS
You may feel hurt that you’ve been mistreated while at the same time wondering whether it’s petty of you to take offense. But psychologically, unfairness communicates a lot more than the act itself. Being treated unfairly violates basic human needs for autonomy, belonging, and morality. It thwarts our agency, makes us feel like we aren’t valued, and tramples on the basic social principles that bind people together.
So it’s no surprise that violating these mores reliably leads to feelings of anger, outage, and contempt—emotions that lead us to act in ways that both harm our careers and are typically inconsistent with our own values: When we’re wronged at work, many of us isolate ourselves or retaliate. And while that may lead to short-term reprieve or catharsis, the longer-term consequences are rarely good.
Instead, we need better ways to respond to mistreatment at work—strategies that can actually improve how others see us and how we see ourselves—so we can minimize the likelihood of it happening again.
1. WALK BACK FROM THE CONCLUSIONS YOU’VE JUMPED TO
Leadership gurus Chris Argyris and Peter Senge are known for introducing the“ladder of inference,” the process by which people make a sequence of assumptions about others’ intentions. It’s important to remember that injustice is in the eye of the beholder, so it’s critical to make sure you’re seeing the situation accurately.
And to do that, there’s no substitute for perspective. Talk to a trusted friend or colleague to get their point of view before taking any action. Whatever they say, the simple act of confiding in others can strengthen your relationships around the office and mitigate the negative feelings you’re experiencing.
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2. TAKE THE MORAL HIGH GROUND
Sometimes it’s actually okay to get up on your high horse and stay there. In fact, refusing to match slight for slight can help you sidestep the indignity you’re feeling and avoid boiling in anger. From that vantage point, you may even be able to look at the situation more critically and learn something about your coworker, your organization, or even yourself—to understand what’s happened in a more detached way.
3. LOOK FOR WHAT’S STILL GOOD, FAIR, AND RIGHT
Sure, you’ve just been treated unfairly in one context, but there are certainly others where you’re still clearly valued and respected at work. And one principlelong familiar to psychologists is our tendency to focus on the negative at the expense of the positive. So make sure you’re considering this recent mistreatment in light of other good things at work, which will help you put it into perspective.
It may be the last thing you’re inclined to do while you’re feeling upset, but consider making a list of the positive aspects of your job—the upsides that haven’tbeen affected by this incident—so you don’t act rashly.
4. FORGIVE WHOEVER’S RESPONSIBLE
This may be the hardest one yet, but it might pay off. Research suggests that forgiveness is critical for mental and physical health in the aftermath of being mistreated. You don’t need to excuse the incident or convince yourself you’re being dramatic, you just need to acknowledge that the bad thing they did to you is something you can live with—that, as Whitney Houston memorably put it, “It’s not right, but it’s okay.” Forgiveness, at any rate, can be a surprisingly powerful way of moving on without carrying a chip on your shoulder.
Let’s be real—being treated unfairly at work can be painful, upsetting, and frustrating. But it can also be an opportunity to build resilience—not just to others, but to your own, less-than-productive knee-jerk responses. So take the high road. The view is much better from there anyway.
FastCompany.com | August 4, 2016 | David Mayer
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Chances are, your boss is keeping an eye on you. Forty-three percent of companies actively monitor employee emails, according to the American Management Association (AMA), and roughly the same number track the time you spend on the phone and who you call (16% go so far as to record those calls). Nearly half of companies say they use video to reduce theft and workplace sabotage.
Workplace monitoring is nothing new, of course. Bosses have been spying on employees for as long as they’ve been hiring people to work for them. But new technologies have made it easier for companies to track their employees’ every move while at the same time making it harder for workers to tell if they’re being watched.
From GPS tracking to snooping on your social media profiles, it’s not hard for a company to keep tabs on you, and unless your boss tells you’re he’s spying, you may never know. (To be fair, many companies do inform employees that they may be subject to monitoring, the AMA says.) This stealthy on-the-job surveillance is perfectly legal in most cases, which may come as a surprise to many people.
“Privacy in today’s workplace is largely illusory,” the AMA’s Ellen Bayer told The Week.
Not sure if your boss is using sneaky techniques to keep tabs on you? Here are four signs that you’re being watched at work.
1. You’re secretly planning to quit – and your boss already knows
More companies, including Credit Suisse and AOL, are mining big data to make predictions about which employees are likely to leave their job in the near future. VoloMetrix, Inc., an analytics firm, examined employee emails and calendar data and discovered that it could predict up to a year in advance who would be putting in their notice, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company says the data it gathers for its clients is anonymized, but it’s not hard to imagine a savvy boss getting a report that there’s a flight risk in a certain team and quickly picking out the squeaky wheel.
And then there’s social media. If you’re connected to your boss on LinkedIn or have a public profile, he may get suspicious if your network suddenly starts to grow or you link up with recruiters or industry competitors. If your company is tracking the website you visit or logging keystrokes, you may also alert your boss to your on-the-clock job search.
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2. You’re called out for a conversation that you thought was private
If your boss reprimands you for a less-than-professional conversation or email exchange that you thought was private, there’s a chance you have a tattletale co-worker. Or your supervisor may be spying on you, perhaps by scanning your email, monitoring your phone conversations, or even looking at the text messages you send on your work-issued device. If they’re using a key-logging program or other monitoring software, they may even know what you’re saying in your personal emails.
Don’t make the mistake that your boss doesn’t care about your idle workplace gossip, either. Thoughtless emails can come back to haunt you, as a newspaper reporter in England discovered after he was reprimanded and eventually fired for sending an email to a colleague about two other coworkers who were having an affair.
“Employers own the content on their own internal email systems and have the right to monitor what you write and to whom,” Jennifer Lee Magas, an employment law attorney and vice president of Magas Media Consultants, LLC, told MainStreet.com.
3. Your boss knows what you did this weekend before you tell him
Does your boss seem to know an awful lot about your personal life? He or she could be checking out your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other social media profiles, even if you haven’t added him to your network or given him your password (something that some employers really do ask for, though laws about that are changing). Stalking your public profiles is a bit creepy, but it’s not all that unusual. Many people have been disciplined or fired after their employers stumbled upon inappropriate posts, photos, and comments online.
In 2014, an Ohio teacher was fired for comments he made that were critical of factory farming. A Maryland prison guard lost his job after making a tasteless crack about prison rape and then tagging his boss in the post. And then there’s Ethan Czahor, the Jeb Bush staffer who only lasted a day before resigning after some offensive tweets he’d posted came to light. Czahor, at least, saw an opportunity in his career misstep – he created Clear, an app thatscans your social media for posts that you get you in trouble.
4. There’s some suspicious software on your devices
If your company’s IT department is monitoring your computer use, it’s not always going to be immediately obvious. However, you can poke around on your desktop to see if there are any telltale signs of monitoring software (Online Tech Tips has some advice on how to do that, if you’re so inclined). The same goes for unusual apps installed on smartphones. But don’t be too quick to uninstall something that looks suspicious or your boss may fight back.
Myrna Arias, who worked for a California money transfer firm, was told by her boss to install a tracking app on her phone. The app allowed the company, Intermex, to track the movements of its workers so closely that her boss allegedly told her that “he knew how fast she was driving.” Not only that, but the company wanted her to keep her phone on all the time. Arias objected to the 24-7 monitoring and uninstalled the app; she was later fired and is now suing her former employer.
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The war for talent. The age-old battle waged by HR teams across the country, each vying to secure and retain the best people to help them achieve organizational success. The eternal effort to create systems, process, and benefits to help keep them once you’ve recruited them.
At the epicenter of the war for talent resides the tech industry, where many talented engineers and other highly-skilled workers have no problem jumping to another employer for a minor bump in pay or benefits. The result? Companies are forever trying to outshine each other with baubles, beer kegs and nap pods to try to entice this demographic to join them.
What this approach fails to do is inspire loyalty. Despite all the money that these companies pour into perks, at the end of the day, it’s just job hopping.
A Better Way to Retain Talent
What if, rather than doing everything possible to keep people no matter what, you took an alternative approach? That’s exactly what Rami Essaid, co-founder and CEO of Distil Networks, has done.
“It’s almost a fool’s errand to try to hold onto people,” Essaid suggests. “Why work to retain people when the only solution becomes offering more outrageous benefits? It’s an unsustainable cycle where people end up leaving anyway. Why not rethink the way work is designed where we acknowledge people are going to move around over the course of their careers?”
And Essaid has some first-hand experience with this phenomenon. His Silicon Valley-based cybersecurity firm helps customers identify and block malicious website traffic while letting legitimate users do what they need to do. Distil is able to find the “bots” that attack websites and police them before they can do damage to your brand.
The success of the company over the last five years has resulted in the rapid expansion of his team, now 150 strong. Here are some of Rami’s secrets to success:
Be intentional about the culture you are creating from the start.Rami started Distil Networks with a small group of longtime friends and many of their initial hires included additional friends from their social circles. “This had the potential to create a dynamic of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ based on whether or not you were a personal friend or not, so we made a very intentional choice that we were going to build a company where everyone was treated with a kinship and in a transparent and honest way,” Essaid explained.
The founders of Distil took care to create a fundamental way of working together that was deeply rooted in the values that they shared as a result of this friendship. And by extending those values out to the team as they grew, they were able to keep the same feeling and way of operating over the years.
Really commit to providing developmental opportunities. “We are constantly investing in our employees.” Essaid described how Distil Networks takes great care in providing robust and comprehensive development to its employees. Be it executive coaching support, job rotations to different functional areas, or training and development, this approach aligns with Essaid’s belief that the company can play a role in helping people achieve their own personal definition of success.
Helping people to grow professionally and personally plays a significant role in ensuring that Distil is the right place for them at that time in their journey. And, if it turns out that a great opportunity presents itself outside of Distil, trying to hold people back is not in anyone’s best interest.
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Structure career progression to include lateral mobility.Organizations that only afford career progression through promotion to levels of management dramatically limits opportunities. By finding ways to move people across the organization, Distil Networks has found another way to help provide people with the maximum opportunity for development.
Help people spread their wings and prosper, even if that means leaving your company. This is based on a few of the fundamental beliefs and assumptions that the leaders at Distil Networks hold to be true about the world of business. If people leave to pursue opportunities that present massive growth and development potential, keeping them would only hinder them. By letting them go forth and prosper, the company helps them succeed while also ensuring that the remaining workforce is in their place of most potential, doing their best work. If this is the case, Distil will become a much more attractive place to work—for the right people at the right time.
Essaid believes that helping people figure out their path and providing plenty of opportunities to achieve their vision of success is a much more productive, positive and effective cycle than trying to keep people who are not in their “zone” employed for as long as possible until they wind up leaving anyway.
Distil’s method doesn’t come without its challenges. Essaid is the first to admit that it can sometimes be difficult to get people to really think about, or articulate, where they want to go in life and in their careers. But this is not unique to Distil by any stretch.
It is incumbent upon leaders to both develop their own coaching skills and understand and acknowledge that some employees may have given little to no critical thought to their more long-term career goals. In these situations, engaging in frequent developmental coaching discussions can help guide employees in their progress so that they can be more intentional about setting and achieving their goals.
You can’t keep everyone around forever. As Richard Bach famously said, “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were.” It seems counterintuitive to give your employees every opportunity to leave. But by helping your team stay engaged in their role, aligned in their personal and professional goals, and allowing them to leave if it isn’t a good fit, you’ll ensure that those who choose to stay will be committed to doing their best work for you, for a long time to come.
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“But if you decide to boost your emotional-intelligence radar and look for subtle signs that your team may be unhappy, you’ll uncover a wealth of actionable feedback.”
Michael Kerr, an international business speaker and author of “The Humor Advantage,” agrees that it’s important to know how your employees feel about you. When they don’t like you, there are consequences, he says. For instance, they’ll be less happy and more stressed (which affects things like their productivity and creativity); they may quit on you (which will cost you and your company time and money); they may give you bad reviews or complain to HR (which puts your job in jeopardy); and you’ll have trouble earning their respect, being viewed as credible, and getting them to listen to your opinions.
“Your goal as a manager is not to be liked by everyone; if it is, you won’t be making the best decisions for the company,” says Taylor. “But if you’re an insensitive manager, no amount of intelligence or business skills will ever take you far in your own career advancement. You will always need a strong team and following to thrive in your career.”
So to avoid having to deal with those consequences, among many others, you’ll need to recognize the signs and make changes to your behavior, attitude, and approach to leading.
Here are 14 subtle signs your employees may secretly hate you:
You’ve got a (bad) gut feeling.
Soon/flickr
“The very first sign that things are going awry in your relationships with employees is a general gnawing feeling that you can’t put your finger on,” Taylor says. “No manager can be liked by everyone, but there are far too many bosses who are not respected by enough of their staff.” If you’ve got that gut feeling something is off, be aware and start looking for other signs.
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They can’t maintain eye contact with you (but can with everyone else).
Bradley Gordon
It’s difficult for an employee who is angry to look you straight in the eye, says Taylor. “They’re afraid that you may be able to detect hostility, so the path of least resistance is for them to look away or avoid being around you wherever possible.”
They avoid you like the proverbial plague.
Andy Morales/flickr
If you notice they take the stairs every time you’re waiting for the elevator, or they manage their schedules in such a way that they rarely overlap with your primary work hours, that’s a good sign they’re avoiding you. And employees typically only avoid people who intimidate them or who they don’t like, says Kerr.
They call in sick a lot, especially due to stress-related reasons.
Flickr/Laura Taylor
Having an employee who goes on “stress leave” or constantly calls in sick could be a sign that they are not comfortable working under your direction, Kerr explains.
“Your employee(s) may not be showing up at work as often, may come to work late, leave early, or are just seemingly never at their desks, because of long, needed breaks,” adds Taylor. “Leaving the scene can take many forms — and it’s a common way that your staff copes with stress. A bad boss-employee relationship is a leading cause of stress and illness,” she says.
They don’t smile around you.
Flickr / Leo Hidalgo
We’re not talking about the occasional bad day or mood swing. If one or more of your employees seem to look miserable every time they’re around you — but you’ve seen them smiling while talking to others in the office — something isn’t right.
“It’s difficult for any employee to put on a happy face when they’re talking to someone they [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][dislike],” says Taylor.
They stop laughing and bantering the moment you walk into the room.
Daniel Goodman / Business Insider
Not smiling when they’re around you is one thing — but clamming up when you step into the office kitchen or conference room is a pretty strong sign that your employees reallydon’t like you and don’t consider you part of their inner circle, Kerr says.
They seem less passionate about their work than they used to be.
Flickr/sunshinecity
You may not be the reason for this (so many things affect one’s level of motivation or enthusiasm at work) — but you could be.
“If their level of enthusiasm has waned, and you’re not seeing your staff jump at the opportunity to help out on new or existing projects anymore, it may be a sign you’re disliked,” says Taylor.
They never invite you to social events.
Flickr / beyrouth
If your employees don’t include you in any after-work social events or happy hours, it very well may be because they don’t want to spend any more time with you than they absolutely have to.
They communicate with you via email, when they talk to others in person.
Shutterstock
“Your unhappy employees may change the way they communicate with you, such as through email, voicemail, or IM, instead of in-person communications,” Taylor explains. “You may detect less personal contact, so that there is less of an opportunity for potential confrontation.”
They’re short with you.
Vancouver Film School/flickr
If you ask, “How’s it going?” and they always respond with “Ok” or “Fine” — or if their emails to always get straight to the point, and never begin with a friendly “Hello” or “Good afternoon,” this may be a sign they’re not a huge fan of you.
“If your employees are beginning to sound like your moody teenager, then that’s a pretty big red flag,” says Kerr.
They give off negative body language.
YouTube
Whether it’s a subtle eye roll or constantly assuming a closed-off position with arms folded across their chest, your employees’ body language will often reveal their true feelings towards you, Kerr says.
Their door is always closed.
A National Acrobat/flickr
“Many employees don’t have the luxury of their own office these days, but if they do, and their door appears closed more often than not, they may be commiserating with friends, family, or even other colleagues,” Taylor says. “They may be seeking advice, or worse, checking out greener pastures.”
They constantly disagree with you.
Leonid Mamchenkov/flickr
“Not all employees shy away from confronting the personality clashes as they pertain to business, thankfully,” says Taylor. “You may find that your staff seems increasingly more difficult and disagreeable, whereas before you were never questioned. This may be because before, they tolerated a more dictatorial management style — but now they’ve realized that they have nothing to lose by challenging you, in the hopes that they will see changes.”
They resign for no good reason.
YouTube/Marina Shifrin
Scads of surveys indicate that “the boss” still ranks as a top reason for employees leaving a job. If they don’t provide a good excuse or reason for leaving, there’s a good chance it’s you.
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When I took my first job leading a large team, I was sure I knew how to spot a toxic culture. And I was sure that I didn’t have it in my team. I was wrong.
We had issues (many of them were my fault). It wasn’t long until I was a young leader with a toxic staff situation. If you’ve found yourself in that situation, know that you’re not alone.
Now that I’ve helped several hundred clients build their teams, I’ve come to recognize there are several early warning signs to toxicity. And just like our physical health, early detection can be the difference maker between staying healthy and becoming terminal.
Here are four early warning signs to look for, and what you can do to fix them.
Sign #1: Rapid Growth Is Killing Your Culture
Believe it or not growth can be the root of toxicity. Growth is great. It’s fun. It’s the goal of all entrepreneurs. But when growth hits breakneck speed, culture is almost always at risk.
Just ask the folks at Zenefits, the three year old Silicon Valley startup that had a $4.5 billion valuation last year. A recent Forbes article outlined the CEO’s troubles that led to his resignation, and a Vanity Fair article outlined some of the cultural mishaps that have made a bad problem even worse.
David Sacks, the company’s new C.E.O. said, “It is no secret that Zenefits grew too fast, stretching both our culture and our controls.” A memo that was sent to the Zenefits staff banning use of the stairwells for smoking, drinking, eating, or inappropriate physical interactions in the stairwell were just a few of the major red flags that their culture was toxic. Many are speculating that the loss of their culture may end up being the death knell of a company with a great idea.
Are you in growth mode?
Take an inventory and make sure your culture can keep pace with your rate of growth. Double down your efforts to guard culture, even if it means slowing down a bit. Assign someone on staff the job of auditing how well your cultural values are being lived out. Growth is an addictive drug. But just as good culture is a Petri dish for growth, rapid growth can be the casket for culture.
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Sign #2: Nobody Talks About Problems
If nobody on your team is vocalizing the issues they see, or suggesting ways of improvement, one of two things is probably happening.
Either you’ve created the most successful company in the history of business and you know everything, or people don’t feel valued enough to think their opinions matter.
Transparency and the ability to raise issues is a hallmark of good culture and a smart team.
At GoogleGOOGL +0.06%, transparency is a cornerstone of the culture. As Lazlo Bock, head of People at Google, said in a recent interview, “The benefit of [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][transparency] is not just that people feel trusted…The other benefit is they’ll know what’s going on. They’ll make better decisions and they’ll create better products.”
When people feel that they can speak up appropriately without a fear of retribution, they feel valued. The culture goes from a toxic one to an innovative and energetic one. Giving your staff a platform to voice their thoughts lets them know that their ideas matter, which in turn leads to them innovating and creating better ways of doing things.
What vehicles are in place in your company that allow team members to bring up concerns and be transparent? How could you improve awareness of those vehicles to the whole team?
Sign #3: Everybody Talks About Problems
While you want to give people a place to feel heard and valued, the number one toxin I see kill culture is gossip. A workplace full of complaining, negativity, and back talk is a workplace that will have high turnover and low productivity.
The solution?
Declare war on gossip.
My friend and client Dave Ramsey has a “zero tolerance” policy at his office about gossip. They simply do not tolerate it. Does this mean that nobody can bring up concerns? Not at all. He and his team have a motto: “Negatives go up; positives come down.” That means when there are problems, people are encouraged to take that problem “up” to their superiors instead of gossiping with colleagues.
When there is positive feedback, team members are strongly encouraged to send those “down” to team member under them on the org chart. It makes the staff feel valued, keeps the leadership informed of potential issues, and creates a sense of unity for the team. Most of all, it provides solutions to problems. Sideways complaining and blame shifting not only spreads ill will, it leaves problems festering with no real solution.
Do you have a clear policy on how complaints and concerns should be handled? How can you reiterate that among your team?
Sign #4: The System Becomes More Important Than the Mission
Many well meaning leaders hire, fire, strategize, and conduct business in a way that puts old systems ahead of their mission.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard something along the lines of “that’s the way it’s always been done,” as a reason for leaders making the decisions they do.
There’s certainly a place for sticking to the things that have been successful in the past, but doing things out of habit instead of mission will suck the life from your team and create a toxic culture.
People are rallied to vision and work hard for a mission they believe in. They want to be part of a company that stands by values, but isn’t a slave to systems that block achieving goals. The key to striking that balance is having a litmus test that can be used to decide whether to follow the system or not.
Ed Young is a pastor and friend who has a great test. He says, “Every church is a non-profit, but it has a profit. And that profit is life change.”
If a decision that will affect great life change means circumventing a system, they go for it. But if there isn’t enough potential life change to warrant breaking the system, they go forward with their proven processes.
What litmus test could you implement to tell people when to follow a system and when to ignore it?
I’ve seen these warning signs take root in really great teams over the years. The teams that address them early are able to make change and charge ahead. Those who don’t, suffer the consequences.
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It’s pretty incredible how often you hear managers complaining about their best employees leaving, and they really do have something to complain about—few things are as costly and disruptive as good people walking out the door.
Managers tend to blame their turnover problems on everything under the sun, while ignoring the crux of the matter:
People don’t Leave Jobs; they Leave Managers.
The sad thing is that this can easily be avoided. All that’s required is a new perspective and some extra effort on the manager’s part.
First, we need to understand the nine worst things that managers do that send good people packing.
1. They Overwork People
Nothing burns good employees out quite like overworking them. It’s so tempting to work your best people hard that managers frequently fall into this trap. Overworking good employees is perplexing; it makes them feel as if they’re being punished for great performance. Overworking employees is also counterproductive. New research from Stanford shows that productivity per hour declines sharply when the workweek exceeds 50 hours, and productivity drops off so much after 55 hours that you don’t get anything out of working more.
If you must increase how much work your talented employees are doing, you’d better increase their status as well. Talented employees will take on a bigger workload, but they won’t stay if their job suffocates them in the process. Raises, promotions, and title-changes are all acceptable ways to increase workload. If you simply increase workload because people are talented, without changing a thing, they will seek another job that gives them what they deserve.
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2. They Don’t Recognize Contributions and Reward Good Work
It’s easy to underestimate the power of a pat on the back, especially with top performers who are intrinsically motivated. Everyone likes kudos, none more so than those who work hard and give their all. Managers need to communicate with their people to find out what makes them feel good (for some, it’s a raise; for others, it’s public recognition) and then to reward them for a job well done. With top performers, this will happen often if you’re doing it right.
If you want your best people to stay, you need to think carefully about how you treat them. While good employees are as tough as nails, their talent gives them an abundance of options. You need to make them want to work for you.
3. They Don’t Care about Their Employees
More than half of people who leave their jobs do so because of their relationship with their boss. Smart companies make certain their managers know how to balance being professional with being human. These are the bosses who celebrate an employee’s success, empathize with those going through hard times, and challenge people, even when it hurts. Bosses who fail to really care will always have high turnover rates. It’s impossible to work for someone eight-plus hours a day when they aren’t personally involved and don’t care about anything other than your production yield.
4. They Don’t Honor Their Commitments
Making promises to people places you on the fine line that lies between making them very happy and watching them walk out the door. When you uphold a commitment, you grow in the eyes of your employees because you prove yourself to be trustworthy and honorable (two very important qualities in a boss). But when you disregard your commitment, you come across as slimy, uncaring, and disrespectful. After all, if the boss doesn’t honor his or her commitments, why should everyone else?
5. They Hire and Promote the Wrong People
Good, hard-working employees want to work with like-minded professionals. When managers don’t do the hard work of hiring good people, it’s a major demotivator for those stuck working alongside them. Promoting the wrong people is even worse. When you work your tail off only to get passed over for a promotion that’s given to someone who glad-handed their way to the top, it’s a massive insult. No wonder it makes good people leave.
6. They Don’t Let People Pursue Their Passions
Talented employees are passionate. Providing opportunities for them to pursue their passions improves their productivity and job satisfaction. But many managers want people to work within a little box. These managers fear that productivity will decline if they let people expand their focus and pursue their passions. This fear is unfounded. Studies show that people who are able to pursue their passions at work experience flow, a euphoric state of mind that is five times more productive than the norm.
7. They Fail to Develop People’s Skills
When managers are asked about their inattention to employees, they try to excuse themselves, using words such as “trust,” “autonomy,” and “empowerment.” This is complete nonsense. Good managers manage, no matter how talented the employee. They pay attention and are constantly listening and giving feedback.
Management may have a beginning, but it certainly has no end. When you have a talented employee, it’s up to you to keep finding areas in which they can improve to expand their skill set. The most talented employees want feedback—more so than the less talented ones—and it’s your job to keep it coming. If you don’t, your best people will grow bored and complacent.
8. They Fail to Engage Their Creativity
The most talented employees seek to improve everything they touch. If you take away their ability to change and improve things because you’re only comfortable with the status quo, this makes them hate their jobs. Caging up this innate desire to create not only limits them, it limits you.
9. They Fail to Challenge People Intellectually
Great bosses challenge their employees to accomplish things that seem inconceivable at first. Instead of setting mundane, incremental goals, they set lofty goals that push people out of their comfort zones. Then, good managers do everything in their power to help them succeed. When talented and intelligent people find themselves doing things that are too easy or boring, they seek other jobs that will challenge their intellects.
Bringing It All Together
If you want your best people to stay, you need to think carefully about how you treat them. While good employees are as tough as nails, their talent gives them an abundance of options. You need to make them want to work for you.
What other mistakes cause great employees to leave? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.
Forbes.com | February 23, 2016 | Travis Bradberry
https://www.firstsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/logo-min-300x123.jpg00First Sun Teamhttps://www.firstsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/logo-min-300x123.jpgFirst Sun Team2016-02-23 17:42:022020-09-30 20:53:51#Leadership : 9 Things That Make Good Employees Quit…Managers Tend to Blame their Turnover Problems on Everything Under the Sun, while Ignoring the Crux of the Matter: People Don’t Leave Jobs; they Leave Managers.
