Employee Retention Strategies—Your Guide for the Best Employee Retention Strategies to Retain Your Best Employees

Dealing with Managers and Executives Whose Poor People or Communication Skills Create Employee Turnover

Ross Blake, “The Employee Retention Manager”

"People leave managers, not companies,” the cliché goes, and many times it’s true.

One of the three largest reasons, and usually the single largest reason, good employees on all levels leave for other employers is due to an unsatisfactory work relationship with their immediate boss.

Some of the most common non-productive behaviors used by supervisors, managers and executives which result in employee turnover are:

Refusing to listen to concerns.

Not understanding what their direct reports and others need from them in order to work effectively and comfortably.

Making unrealistic demands, including work schedules which negatively impact employee work-life balance.

Not praising good performance by direct reports.

Not helping good performers develop their careers.

Being abrasive in what they say and how they say it.

All of these are detrimental, and it’s not uncommon for a difficult manager to be using several of them.

You’d think any organization would move quickly to put an end to such actions and their harmful consequences; here are five of the largest reasons why some managements hesitate to do so.

The offending manager may be a charter employee or partner in the company.

S/he is member of the family that owns the company.

Past efforts to improve their behaviors failed.

Management doesn’t realize the costs of their actions including turnover.

The person otherwise has a good track record, especially in terms of getting things done or generating sales or revenue.

Is management fully aware of the manager’s behavior and its negative impact and costs?

If not, request a meeting to describe the behaviors and their impact.

It’s more effective if you refrain from criticizing the manager, but instead focus on how their behaviors hinder the organization in meeting its business objectives, and in retaining valuable employees and customers.

In addition, it’s a mistake to wait until your displeasure with the difficult manager makes you angry enough to confront them.

There are two problems with waiting: one, it sends the message that non-productive behaviors are acceptable since they haven’t been challenged, and two, you’re much more likely to have an emotionally-charged confrontation which makes progress more difficult.

Among the least effective strategies is to send the person to general management training about team building or conflict resolution skills, hoping they’ll discover their difficult behaviors on their own and make needed changes. This rarely occurs.

Or, the organization sends the manager and his or her group or department to training thinking the group and manager will somehow make a transformation together. This also rarely occurs.

The other most common and ineffective strategy is to threaten to fire the manager or executive without giving them a viable means to effectively correct the non-productive or abrasive behaviors they’ve been using.

Replacing the manager may not be the best option if they’re willing to alter their working style. And replacement costs for supervisors, managers, and executives range from 150 to 400% of their annual salaries.

How to make progress.

Top managers need to plan out a meeting in advance to describe the manager’s behaviors and their impact in a non-blaming, non-accusing way.

The meeting’s purpose is not to criticize or condemn this person; instead, you want to:

Make them aware of their actions.

Make them aware of the negative impact their actions have on others and the organization (sometimes they’re unbelievably unaware of these).

Provide a viable solution for them at the time you confront them, including working with an internal or external consultant whose purpose is to help them improve and resolve the situation in a mutually-beneficial way. Doing this signals that your desire is to resolve the situation for all concerned and typically reduces their defensiveness and resistance.

This strategy puts the focus on the well-being of the organization and the manager, and lets them know the organization is behind them.

With skillful guidance or coaching and corrective feedback, many managers are capable of making needed changes.

You can use an internal facilitator provided they have sufficient skills, and if both management and the manager believe their interests will be fairly represented.

Another option is to use an external consultant; they have the added benefits of being more objective, are not emotionally involved, and can better promise confidentiality.

The time and dollars you spend coaching managers and executives with poor people skills is usually far less costly than replacing them.