If you are reading this and you have achieved a leadership role, then you have already been on both sides of the desk as an employee and executive. The key to being a great boss is simple: treat your team how you would want to be treated yourself.
As employees, we all desire growth opportunities, flexibility, recognition, transparency, respect, and trust from our manager. We want to feel valued for our contributions, not just as a cog in the organizational wheel.
From the management perspective, leading people well isn't all sunshine and roses either. Tough business realities mean sometimes denying requests, delivering hard feedback, or making unpopular but strategic decisions.
True leaders feel the weight of both inspiring their team and delivering results.
The best bosses marry these two horizons by always putting themselves in their people's shoes. Before handing down a tough mandate, they communicate the context and rationale transparently. When delivering critical feedback, they make it about behaviors, not character, focusing on how the person can grow.
Great managers know who craves public recognition versus private praise. They accommodate work styles while minimizing impact on productivity. And they balance patience with high standards, remembering they started in the employee's seat once too.
In the end, outstanding leadership comes from a place of compassion. Great bosses treat employees how they would want their own children treated - with kindness, empathy, wisdom and care. Companies thrive when people feel valued in their humanity, not just abilities. Lead by the Golden Rule, and you can't go wrong.
- Great managers retain employees. Here are some other practical best practices:
- Frequent recognition, praise and rewards for achievements
- Frequent 1-on-1 meetings and checking in regularly on employee engagement and job satisfaction
- Protecting team from unnecessary work disruptions
- Admitting mistakes without blaming the team
- Advocating for the team’s needs across the company
- Considering personal needs around schedules and time off
- Celebrating team and individual successes frequently
When employees feel supported, recognized and valued by their manager, they stay and thrive. Managers set the tone. The best connect work to purpose, provide growth opportunities, and exemplify the values they wish to see.
It's The Empathy, Stupid
Remember that old political saying, "It's the economy, stupid!"? That was a campaign motto designed to keep the candidate focused on the most important thing. Well, manager, for you it's the empathy!
Put yourself back in the employee's shoes. You were there once. Just because now you represetnt the company, doesn't mean that empathizing with employees is a bad thing. In fact, by making employee's lives happier and healthier, works int eh company's best interest.
When it comes right down to it, turnover and attrition are about employees not getting what they want. Employees leave because something is not fulfilled in their employment. Don't be the reason they leave. Figure out what your company, your department, or your subordinates are missing.
Start with known issues like low salaries compared to the market. Then look at the things you know bothered you or mattered to you when you were on the other side of the management line.
When it comes right down to it, turnover and attrition are about employees not getting what they want. Employees leave because something is not fulfilled in their employment. Don't be the reason they leave. Figure out what your company, your department, or your subordinates are missing.
Start with known issues like low salaries compared to the market. Then look at the things you know bothered you or mattered to you when you were on the other side of the management line. It isn’t hard. Think about what ticked you off as an employee. What silly policies did your former employers put in place that demotivated you to work or motivated you to leave?
Don’t be stingy. All energy needs fuel. Staying power is fueled by good management. So gas ‘em up in every way you can. Happy employees delight customers and produce more. So make employees happy! What is there to lose by giving employees better work-life balance? Any good businessperson knows that you spend $5 to make $10 every time. Employees (as a whole) will be your best investment if you treat them like humans and make them believe that you care about them.
As an example, I have a nephew who is new to the work-a-day world. He works for a mid-sized but successful company. During the holidays, they had a lot of employees taking their paid time off and several others out sick. The owner got upset and felt people were taking advantage. They had a hard time meeting customer needs. So the management team came up with a real winner. They declared a new policy for the upcoming year. The company will close for business the week between Christmas and the New Year. This will set expectations for clients and give employees a break during an important family-focused time of the year. Pretty smart, right?
Nope… They made the policy so that during the week the company closes, employees will use their paid time off. Except that they didn’t increase the PTO allotment by a week, or even a day. They just made it a forced vacation and they prohibited the use of PTO throughout the year. About as inflexible as you can get. They already fired some employees for having taken too much time in the beginning of the year. Guess what this new policy has done to morale. Employees are angry and scornful of management. They feel (and gossip) that management is stupid. Management could have easily achieved the goals of setting customer expectations and providing a break for employees with better results by giving the employees the week off unpaid; while still allowing them to use their PTO on their own terms throughout the year. Better yet, they could have gained loyalty and increased productivity by just giving an extra paid week off during the holiday. But management can’t tell their dollars from their pennies.
Mind Your Metrics
A good way to know if you are (or anyone in management for that matter, is) a good manager is to track your turnover rates. When you see a manager – including yourself – getting consistently high turnover rates, you know something needs a fix. This analysis should account for already high industry, or career, or overall company rates. The metric should be analyzed department by department and manager verse manager.
The "Good" SME
Too many times, whether as an internal HR practitioner or in my human resources consulting; I have seen owners and executives promote a good individual contributor who is a bad manager. The mantra is always that this person is “good.” Fill in whatever you like after “good”: producer, subject matter expert, salesperson, widget maker, etc. Because they are good at the base function of what they do, upper management tolerates bad management and often bad behavior.
That bad management and/or bad behavior causes turnover. Other employees leave because of this person. Now, take what we know about turnover: it has a large cost associated with it. And multiply that cost by the number of employees lost because of the bad manager. Then, subtract the turnover cost from any revenue or profit the bad manager’s “good” characteristics produce. Is it really worth it? Is letting this shmoe ruin your culture worth the loss of good employees?
Well, Now We Know
So, if your turnover numbers are outlying your peers, fix it. Get your management right. We have a ton of good tools and tips on how to do this. If it is another manager whose turnover is hurting your company, shape them up of ship them out. No matter how “good” they are or have been in one aspect, you have to get real with them. They are certainly worth retaining if they can reform their reputation and treatment of others. So invest in them with management training, emotional intelligence instruction, and good ol’ fashioned mentoring. But make it formal and put them on notice that if things don’t change, they will be gone.
Remind them that they need to be the manager they have always dreamed of working for themselves. I think there is a rule about that or something. I think it’s gold.
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Joseph Campagna, SPHR, SHRM-SCP is president and owner of My Virtual HR Director, a human resources outsourcing company serving small and medium sized businesses nationwide. My Virtual HR Director provides an executive level HR advisor to companies that can’t afford or can’t justify hiring a fulltime HR professional on staff.
With twenty years of experience dedicated to the HR profession, Mr. Campagna has honed his skills as an expert in compliance, talent management and employee relations. Bringing human capital management experience from start-ups, IT and biotechnology companies, employee leasing, and fortune 100 behemoths Mr. Campagna has filled his tool belt through generalist work, executive positions, and consulting opportunities with companies such as ADP, Merrill Lynch, and Johnson & Johnson. As Vice President of HR for biotech company Hemo Concepts, as well as the head of HR for the global IT solutions company, the Galaxy Group, Mr. Campagna created rich and successful organizational development and employee engagement programs.
Having worked with a diverse group of companies and clients in a broad spectrum of industries and environments, he brings a unique HR philosophy to every organization he works with. “HR is not the picnic department,” he says “but instead bears the full responsibility and the unlimited potential for a highly productive and efficient workforce. If HR systems are successful, the organization’s revenue should be increased.” From mergers and acquisitions, to IPO’s, to new product development, to divestiture Mr. Campagna has a true business background to support his HR Architecture.
Mr. Campagna is certified as a senior professional through both the Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The HRCI designation of Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) is an experienced-based examination certification. The SHRM certification is a competency based examination certification. Each is a premier designation in the world of HR and recognized by the Society for Human Resource Management of which Joe is a national member and former chapter president.
Mr. Campagna brings decades of helping small and medium sized businesses create HR structures such as employee handbooks, performance systems, talent management, training programs, and employee engagement. He knows how to deliver business results through HR aligned objectives.
Nearly 30 years of expertise and HR executive authority combined with a group health insurance license and certifications from the Society for Human Resource management and the Human Resources Certification Institute have given Joseph Campagna the guru status that has earned him leadership roles, board of director roles, and speaking engagements related to human resources.