The Number One Reason why employees first disengage then quit their job is:
According to...
A Gallup poll of more 1 million employed U.S. workers concluded that the No. 1 reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss or immediate supervisor.
"People leave managers not companies...in the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue," Gallup wrote in its survey findings.
I like research. I love articles with links to more data. This issue deserves a couple more.
Consider this: Millions of Bad Managers are Killing America’s Growth.
The single biggest decision your company makes every day is who you name manager.
This is the conclusion Gallup draws from decades of data and interviews with 25 million employees, in our recently released State of the American Workplace report.
But companies keep getting this decision wrong, over and over again.In fact, the people picked to be managers account for the majority of variance in almost all performance-related outcomes. Yet leaders will spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on everything but hiring the right managers.
The author of this post is Jim Clifton, the Chairman of the Gallup organization; that’s the organization that’s been documenting the state of employee engagement, or its lack, for decades. What they document is not pretty. 70% of American workers are not engaged, emotionally and intellectually, in their work. 70%.
Count your colleagues.
Multiply that number times 70% or 0.7 and you’ll see the problem. 10 employees? 7 are work-shift zombies, mindlessly going through the motions, coming to life as soon as they leave. Remember those employees on their first day? All dressed up and raring to show their strengths and contributions?
Who transformed their passion and enthusiasm into these zombies in the cubicles and offices around us? Well, again, let’s see what Mr. Clifton writes in Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace.
Leaders,
Here’s something they’ll probably never teach you in business school: The single biggest decision you make in your job — bigger than all of the rest — is who you name manager. When you name the wrong person manager, nothing fixes that bad decision. Not compensation, not benefits — nothing.
At Gallup, we’ve studied the impact of human nature on the economy for decades. We’ve now reviewed more than 25 million responses to our employee engagement survey, the Q12.
I interviewed Jim Clifton regarding his excellent book, The Coming Jobs War. You can listen here.
How do you choose the right manager? The two previous posts light the path:
Want Engaged Employees? Hire the Right People the First Time. Change that to:
Want Engaged Employees? Hire the Right Manager the First Time.
Engage Your Brand Evangelists in the Hiring Process. If you’re engaging the peers of a future employee in their interviews, why not engage the peers of a future manager with his/her interviews?
There’s a consistency of messaging, process and engagement in being consistent with your interview process for new hires throughout your organization, whether it’s for internal or external candidates. Those are good things in building a culture of engagement.
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