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Employment Today™
"VALUED EMPLOYEE JUST BAILED? REAL REASON FOR LEAVING REVEALED!"
Dear Kathryn:
Dear Kathryn: With a recent promotion, I inherited a regional branch
office that's experienced more turnover in one year than an
emergency room has admissions. I could literally build an office
park with the nameplates of folks that have left this facility in
the last 24 months.
After recovering from the shock of reading the personnel reports, I
personally visited with the various department managers, attempting
to get a handle as to what's caused dozens of employees to bolt. As
many of the managers travel a great deal, they didn't have a lot of
insight. The most common story I got explaining the recent
departures was that employees got better money elsewhere. The second
reason was better duties with more challenges.
I immediately did a salary comparison through local and industry
associations and found our pay rate to be on target. As to more
opportunity at our competition, that could be true, but doesn't
adequately explain the sudden departure of over fifty employees out
of one hundred ten! In attempting to get more light on the
situation, I contacted recent departing employees. I didn't get any
real information from the few return calls I did get other then
"management has a lot of problems." No kidding!
I want my corporate headquarters to give me some assistance from
their experienced human resource people to help get this place under
control. Is this kind of turnover, in light of the moderate job
market these last two years, explainable? I've never experienced
this and am searching for more answers as to what causes this kind
of turnover. What other immediate steps should I be taking?
I'm responsible for making this operation run and not getting much
help from the on-site managers. HELP!
ROB T., Middletown, CT
Dear Rob:
While your corporate headquarters may not be as quickly responsive
to your initial cry for help, at least they were prescient enough to
position you at this branch to recognize and straighten out this
major issue. Although the company may not realize how expensive
turnover of this nature is, the P&L will soon show the effects of
lost efficiency, production, and thus lesser profits soon enough.
The additional cost of recruiting, training, down time and lesser
productivity will impact the bottom line even more.
The good news is that you're there to wake up corporate and get both
local managers and corporate to start listening to former and
current employees. Don't be surprised if managers respond with an
attitude of indifference, only wanting to protect their place of
employment as a good place to work and remain blithely ignorant as
to the realities..
The other attitude you may is the view that this is just the "cost
of doing business". Turnover of this nature, far outweighs the cost
of doing business and you're right, it must stop, soon.
Some facts for you: a recent survey completed by Saratoga Institute
showed that 89% of managers believed that employees leave and stay
mostly for money, very similar to what your managers think. The
second part of the survey however, revealed that 80% of employees
leave for reasons related to the job, the manager, the culture or
the work environment, not money! The big problem for you is in not
knowing what's causing the problem.
Saratoga Institute estimates the average cost of losing an employee
to one times annual salary. This means if you lost fifty employees
this last year at an average salary of 40k, your company lost $2
million dollars!
Here are some immediate plans you can put into action: 1. Exit
interviews and again pursue the core employees that left this last
year. Explain you're new, value their insight and will keep it
confidential. 2. Ask all employees to complete a questionnaire that
targets their job satisfaction/dissatisfaction levels. Ask targeted
questions that require the employee to say positives and negatives
about the environment, how their performance is critiqued, and
communication levels they experience between themselves and their
manager and the recognition they get.
By asking employees to participate in this fashion, it shows you
want open communication. This spells out that you care about the
relationship between them and their boss/employer and your goal is a
"partnership", not an adversarial fencing match.
Some additional guidance is available in a new book entitled "The 7
Hidden Reasons Why Employees Leave" by Leigh Branham. You'll get
some good details about how to conduct realistic job previews;
create realistic job descriptions with expected competencies; make
the interview process more then a question and answer session but a
preview of coming attractions if they were in the job. Tackling the
reasons for the turnover is your first step in preventing more. This
will take immediate and dedicated energy in playing detective
to find out the reasons behind the exodus and simultaneously, quick
work to avoid additional turnover. Not easy, but doable. Good luck.
Dear Kathryn:
I left my employer four months ago, thinking I'd only be on COBRA a
few months. Surprisingly, I'm still on COBRA with no job prospects
in sight and my ex-employer telling me they're discontinuing any
medical coverage. They will be giving "benefit allowances" instead
to current employees.
They've notified me I will no longer have COBRA available! Cost of
the insurance on my own is exorbitant! Don't they have to continue
to offer me COBRA for at least one year?
SUZZANE R., Vernon, CT
Dear Suzzane:
Bad news. Once the medical plan disappears (your former employer no
longer will be using this medical plan for any employee), the
obligation to provide COBRA disappears.
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