Why are your employees leaving?
More changes are poised to happen in the next decade than have taken place in the last 25 years, and that is saying something. The emergence of a pandemic slowed that down with lockdowns and now with a lagging supply chain. Add to that, what has been dubbed the Great Resignation, and any thoughts of ‘going back to business as usual’ are fantasies. Why are so many people leaving and what might be done about it.
It is unrealistic to think that everyone will use these specific ideas to solve an employment issue, but perhaps, they will inspire other thoughts that can do that for you. By the way, that is one of the significant discoveries from the Ideation Emporium of Creativity- any idea can be a good idea if it leads to a better one.
Let’s talk about three groups of individuals: Seeking more pay, seeking better balance, and those seeking better engagement.
SEEKING MORE PAY:
This group is the easiest to discuss. They tend to be lower on the pay scale but potentially the most important people of your company. I say of your company because that is what a company is- a collection of people.
Potential solutions:
The first is obvious, give them a better pay rate. That does mean the same rate at the shop down the street. It means a better rate than the guy down the road. It also means increasing the rate in proportion for those long-standing employees.
The second is to apply automation where you can. If a sustained higher rate for employees truly is not in the capacity, then run at costs while putting in measures for automation. This is a change, but also one that has capitalization ability. Understanding that a successful business utilizes the long & short in tandem, as discussed in the Ideation Emporium of Creativity, is key.
If your argument is “that costs too much,” I bet it costs less than being out of business.
If your argument is “our Board won’t approve it,” get a new Board.
If your argument is “we won’t have a business,” maybe it is time to change business models entirely. In new times, you need new rules to operate by. Those that do not change will be out of business. That is very scary, as change often is, but also what needs to be considered.
If you are running a production facility and the local grocery store is paying better, you lose. You will have constant turnover. The cost of continuous turnover is stratospheric. Here is what it costs you:
1. You will lose the ‘tribal’ knowledge of how things are done that have allowed you to be in business. This results in actual costs with re-work, scrap, returns, and lost customers.
2. Often, you will lose those that have been good partners in working for you. They will feel unappreciated. Tribal knowledge aside, these are usually your biggest champions in the community, and they just left for a few dollars more an hour.
3. At some point, you will exhaust your potential employment pool, especially in areas with smaller populations. Now you can’t even make anything, and the constant backorder is going to cause customers to leave just like the employees
4. If you are constantly training, you are not as productive. Also, there is a lot of stress that comes into play with continually training. Both of those may cause other employees to leave for some reasons we will talk about.
SEEKING BETTER BALANCE:
Potential solutions:
The first is to set priorities. This is you, CEOs of the world. Your top priority is to set the priority. If you say your top priority is making money, you need to learn that making money is an outcome, not a priority. You need to communicate to EVERY single employee YOURSELF the company’s top 3 to 5 priorities. Here is a fill-in-the-blank to get you started.
Our first priority is to focus on ________________. We need to shift and prioritize resources to ensure that this SINGLE core is sustained. That means we will apply all of our attention to this until it is as secure as possible. Second, and only after we know the first priority is secured, we are going to _____________ so that customers can do business with us in an easier manner. Lastly, we are, again only after the first two priorities are operating, we will _____________.
Since we are discussing people leaving, I suggest that people be the first one. By focusing on your team, you will more than likely find out where the ‘noise’ is that keeps people busy but is not effectively driving your revenues. Again, making money is an outcome, not a priority. When your focus is about making money, those burned out will leave. That is very costly as the talent handled the challenges just leaving, and it is not because of their pay rate. That is a considerable cost.
Imagine being a single parent to two adopted boys, a foster parent, and a volunteer coach and mentor. You make a commitment that on weekends that if you do work, it is just a filler so that your focus is on the boys. Then you are working 11 to 12-hour days during the workweek. Mix in having gotten Covid-19 and being a long hauler (someone with prolonged symptoms for months, especially the ‘foggy brain’). You find that you have no time for other things such as writing or helping develop programs in the community because you are just mentally tired.
That was me. I say ‘was’ because I recognized I was living to work and not working to live. More importantly, I discovered I was actually causing detriment to my health. So much so that I needed to get an MRI to make sure a small tumor I have wasn’t not causing a never-ending headache. The headache went away the day after I departed my prior organization.
Why is there so much burnout? A pandemic absolutely can add mental stress, but that may have just been the tipping point. We have drastically changing corporate generations that have very different views. That creates unhealthy tension as both sides are reluctant to listen. There is also the stress of people in other areas leaving, which means people are now expected to do more because the likely replacement of the person that left with someone able to just jump in is unlikely at best.
Keep in mind, even before the pandemic hit, scores and scores of people were saying they had too much on their work plates. In came more processes, which is not a bad thing, except when people hide behind it. Processes should make your routine work easier, not more daunting. When most apply process now, it is just to throw problems over the wall and onto someone else’s plate.
The plate of work, if focused on, can shrink, and doing that does make people feel valued. It also allows for more engagement at work, but more importantly, at home. When people can let go of the stress of work and explore life, it changes everything. It pays dividends for their work too.
SEEKING BETTER ENGAGEMENT:
Potential solution:
Actively get your teams to have fun together and in diverse groups. This is a core theme to the Ideation Emporium of Creativity. It works to bring people together, and that is all a business really is, for the most part, people working together. Introduce deliberate playfulness. Encourage people to take time to think. Empower people to laugh together and express creativity.
I am sure all of us can relate to having thought something similar to “I don’t have time to even read all of my emails, let alone take 5 minutes to think.” This is a major red flag and should stop you in your tracks. That is a clear indicator that engagement is lacking.
Other red flags- skipping breaks, eating at your desk, lacking basic self-care, being curt or rude to those outside of work, and a sense of not being fulfilled. Basically, feeling like work is a heavy task that you only want to do the bare minimum for because you aren’t being engaged.
Direct things to do to foster engagement:
1. Deliberately get teams laughing together. When we have time to foster relationships with co-workers and leadership, we know that communication is more manageable. This takes time but also pays out a better use of time. A stressed brain can’t process nearly as well as a relaxed brain.
2. Perhaps as part of teams laughing together, they work on projects to help their community. People say how they wish they could spend time helping others and making their communities better. The team building here is impressive, but the community support is overwhelmingly fantastic later on.
3. Tell people and allow them to actively participate in SIGNIFICANT projects for the company. This does not mean that they are engaged for the length of the project. In fact, I would argue that their roles should be well defined in size so they can hit it hard and be full of energy. If they are involved, and it is just added to their plate, it just creates burnout. People like to leave their mark on something they can take pride in.