The Great Employee Exodus!
What started the great employee exodus and Why do 2 million people a month quit their Jobs? Of the many reasons, the largest few are very telling:
A recent study by Accenture reports:
1) They don’t like their boss (31%),
2) A lack of empowerment (31%),
3) Internal politics (35%) and
4) Lack of recognition (43%).
How does it affect companies?
Often we hear things like, “anyone is replaceable or we don’t need them, they need the job”. While it is true you can always get another body to sit at the desk, who was there to replace people like Albert Einstein, or today’s Elon Musk? Of course not everyone is of their caliber but when a person is fully developed, committed, focused and happy it is often amazing what their performance looks like. For an organization to go through people for the reasons above is at the very least wasting resources and at worst downright inept!
Why spend money on recruiting and hiring only to have an unskilled supervisor run the employee off. There was obviously something there if you hired them in the first place. Or is it the company’s hiring practices are just that bad? Allowing unskilled leaders to negatively impact the company’s bottom line is simply poor, or as in most cases, no management on the part of their leadership. All companies should have performance standards and behavioral standards in place to ensure their human productivity power is not lessoned by self-centered and adolescent behaviors. It only makes good fiscal sense!
How individuals can avoid negative cultures?
Companies have managed to convince people that we need them more than they need us. If that is true, why are they always looking for what they believe is their perfect employee? The truth is companies need good employees as well as good leaders to take care of them. The effect of convincing the public they need the company more than the company needs them is that it makes it an employer’s market. It’s akin to a doctor convincing you, that you need them and have no right to question their qualifications. It’s called the “Authority Trigger” in psychology.
In practice most people spend more time at work than they do with their own family. They have every right to ensure that where they are spending their time at is a place they actually will enjoy being. To ensure success an individual must make certain their work environment is one where they can thrive. If you take the first job offered or do not ensure the work environment is right for you, more often than not you are miserable until you finally leave to protect your sanity!
When going to an interview as an individual, you should always have questions prepared to assess your compatibility with the organization and the leader you would be reporting to. Questions like:
- What is the main focus of the company’s leaders?
- What is management’s idea of the ideal employee?
- What is the work environment like in terms of cohesiveness?
- How often do people leave the company citing being unhappy as the reason?
- How flexible and open are management in terms of new ideas and suggestions?
In order for questions like these to effectively help the individual to find the right company and position for them, they must know who they are! Research shows that most Americans do not figure out what they want to be when they grow up until between 35 and 50 years old. The main reason is because we are not taught to stop and really think about what makes us happy. We are taught to always react and pursue our life from a place of lack. I.e., “I don’t have a job and I need one. I don’t have a companion and I need one. I don’t have a…. and I need one, so on and so forth. Instead it should be, what makes me happy? What would really make me feel good? It sounds as though those questions should be very easy to answer but you will find they are much harder than you think. It is often beneficial to get professional assistance in truly understanding what you really do and do not like and want. You have to understand your beliefs and emotions to make accurate assessments and decisions!
Does the company know what they want?
Actually no! One of the biggest mistakes companies make in hiring employees is that they do not consider the compatibility of the new employee and the leader they will be reporting to. Unfortunately, one size does not fit all, when it comes to people and productive relationships.
There are general leadership styles, types, or behavioral systems, depending on your preferred description. They are:
- Transactional or authority based
- Transformational or visionary (also authority based)
- Laissez faire, servant or spiritual (again depending on the preferred description)
- Goals, Structure, culture (GSC) (TLI’s Modern Style)
Quick breakdown is:
Transactional leaders like to do the thinking and want total compliance with no resistance
Transformational leaders want deep devotion to their vision
Laissez faire leaders want people to lead themselves
Because of the leaders focus each of these styles work well with a certain type of person (determined by beliefs and personality). The GSC leader is the only one skilled, flexible, and adept enough to be highly effective with all people. They have a deep understanding of belief systems and communications styles. Consequently they have learned great emotional control and relationship building skills making them highly effective in all scenarios.
Failure to match the leader’s leadership style with the beliefs, skills, and tolerances of the employee is always a recipe for conflict and possible failure! It is in both the individual’s and the organization’s favor to ensure the right person is working at the right place! They both suffer when the proper steps are not taken by both. Let’s reduce the chaos in corporate America! Give yourself and your organization’s leadership to stop negative turnover and make the workplace a great place to be. Get the communication and leadership skills that fix both sides of the problem, become a GSC Leader!
