IS A TURNOVER TSUNAMI HEADED OUR WAY

I have good news and I have bad news...and I have more good news.

The good news is that the economy is recovering and gaining momentum. The bad news is that, according to a recent poll, 86% of workers said they plan to look for a new job in the coming year. Furthermore, only 5% said they intend to stay in their current jobs. Yikes!

Okay, let's factor in Mark Twain's "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Let's also factor in the overall change in the current contract between employers and employees: loyalty essentially has gone the way of the dodo bird and employees view themselves as independent contractors in a constantly revolving door of job search.

Still, this level of discontent and intent to change jobs should make leaders sit up and pay attention. What if you experienced a 50% turnover this year? How would that affect your organizational performance and profits?

Another recent poll found (again) that the main reason employees leave (that employers can control) is feeling mistreated by their supervisors. This means that you likely are losing your "A" Players to your competition primarily because your leaders don't know how to lead.

Remember back when the recession hit and you were figuring out how you were going to adapt to the "new normal" in order to survive, much less thrive? Remember how the negotiating leverage in the employer/employee dance shifted dramatically in favor of the employer? Now, remember how you made those big cuts to your leadership training and coaching budgets?

The time may be right to tweak your strategy again. Since leadership above all drives organizational performance, and apparently most leaders aren't very good at leading, you could probably hit a home run by training and coaching your leaders to be better than your competition's.

We should consider the possibility that I may be biased since I'm in the leadership coaching and training business. But hey, you can't argue with statistics...

TECHNIQUES

Technique #1: Hire the best leaders you can find; i.e., "A" Players.

Technique #2: Train and coach your leaders to their full potential so they don't drive away your other "A" Players.

Technique #3: Outperform your competition by retaining your "A" Players over time.

Copyright Terry "Doc" Dockery, Ph.D. All rights reserved.