Who is Responsible for High Turnover?

Is it fair to point the finger at managers if a company is losing employees at a faster than acceptable rate?

Yes.

It may not be “fair” because engagement and retention are relatively new problems in today’s corporations, but it is true that direct managers are often most responsible for employee loss or disengagement.

Our extensive research and employee engagement training program results have shown that most employees leave a company because of poor management, not for money or loftier titles. Here are three reasons to get moving on engagement:

1. Leading Indicator: Employee engagement is wonderful “leading indicator” for management effectiveness and overall management system health. Wouldn’t it be great to have some early warning signs before you start missing your targets?
   
   
2. Link to Business Success: We now have 10 years of research that links employee engagement to extra effort that directly affects productivity, organizational effectiveness, and voluntary turnover. In fact, top quartile companies report 12% higher profit, 19% higher operating income, 5.75% higher operating margin, 18% greater productivity, 12% higher customer satisfaction, and 51% less voluntary turnover.
   
   
3. Measured and Taught: Employee engagement can be measured. The survey results can then be used to design and develop employee engagement training programs that impact your business. This includes educating managers about their critical role in engagement and retention, developing the critical few behaviors they need to adopt in order to engage and keep key talent, and measuring the impact of the new behaviors.

As they learn more effective ways to manage, engage, and retain their top talent, managers can then be held accountable for retaining their key team members and getting that elusive “additional discretionary effort” that is the difference between average and expected performance.