This is a powerful article for those managing people or for managing managers who manage people.
It’s a Travis Bradberry creation. Talk about a multi-tasker: Travis is a contributor for Entrepreneur Magazine, co-author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and president at TalentSmart. He has deep experience from which he pulls this list of nine things that managers are doing that drive away good employees. The list is here to get you started. Please read the article in in entirety by clicking on the link at the bottom of this post.
Most of the time the blame for turnover is inaccurately placed as prized employees resign. Every reason imaginable is tied to this problem but one of the truths that Travis shares is this: people don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.
Minimizing or even avoiding loss of good employees is important because turnover is disruptive to your business. It’s costly in the training and ramp up time that each employee’s replacement requires. It is damaging to your continuity especially in children’s activity centers where this causes valuable relationships with parents, students and other team members to be abandoned. Others have to pick up the slack in responsibilities overloading the rest of the team.
Travis’s nine points can help you to work on this. Those managing employees need to take a new perspective and put forth some extra effort.
Managers often loose good employees because of these traits.
- They overwork people.
This is the worst: nothing burns good employees out quite like overworking them.
- They don’t recognize contributions and reward good work.
It’s easy to underestimate small expressions of appreciation and recognition.
- They don’t care about their employees.
At least 50% of those who leave their jobs do it because of their relationship with their boss/manager.
- They don’t honor their commitments.
Do what you say.
- They hire and promote the wrong people.
People are happy when they are doing the job that fits their skills and when they are working with other like-minded professionals.
- They don’t let people pursue their passions.
Go beyond “let.” Help them pursue their passions.
- They fail to develop people’s skills.
Provide ongoing training and opportunities for employees to develop new skills.
- They fail to engage their creativity.
Encourage and perhaps even reward creativity.
- They fail to challenge people intellectually.
Good employees enjoy – no thrive on – challenge.
You have to bring all of this together in a perspective that shows that you and your managers genuinely care about your employees. Superficiality is a sure relationship prohibitor.
A version of this article first appeared at TalentSmart.co. Read it in its entirety