Here are 10 ways to guarantee that your best people will quit:
10. Treat everyone equally. This may sound good, but your employees are not equal. Some are worth more, because they produce more results. The key is not to treat them equally; it is to treat them all fairly.
9. Tolerate mediocrity. A-players don’t have to or want to play with a bunch of C-players.
8. Have dumb rules. I did not say have no rules; I specified dumb rules. Great employees want to have guidelines and direction, but they don’t want to have rules that get in the way of doing their jobs or that conflict with the values the company says are important.
7. Don’t recognize outstanding performance and contributions. Remember Psychology 101: Behavior you want repeated should be rewarded immediately.
6. Don’t have any fun at work. Where’s the written rule that says work has to be serious? If you find it, rip it to shreds and stomp on it, because the notion that work cannot be fun is actually counterproductive. The workplace should be fun. Find ways to make work and/or the work environment more relaxed and fun, and you will have happy employees who look forward to coming to work each day.
5. Don’t keep your people informed. You’ve got to communicate not only the good, but also the bad and the ugly. If you don’t tell them, the rumor mill will.
4. Micromanage. Tell them what you want done and how you want it done. Don’t tell them why it needs to be done and why their job is important. Don’t ask for their input on how it could be done better.
3. Don’t develop an employee retention strategy. Employee retention deserves your attention every day. Make a list of the people you don’t want to lose and, next to each name, write down what you are doing or will do to ensure that person stays engaged and on board.
2. Don’t do employee retention interviews. Wait until a great employee is walking out the door instead and conduct an exit interview to see what you could have done differently so they would not have gone out looking for another job.
1. Make your on-boarding program an exercise in tedium. Employees are most impressionable during the first 60 days on the job. Every bit of information gathered during this time will either reinforce your new hire’s “buying decision” (to take the job) or lead to “Hire’s Remorse.” Written by Mel Kleiman [originally posted here] Mel Kleiman is an internationally known authority on recruiting, selecting,and hiring hourly employees. Visit Mel’s blog at www.humetrics.com.
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A friend of mine shared this article with me, and I loved it. As an employee I could remember so many of these being implemented both in the church and in other organizations. Bad rules, micromanaging, poor information sharing, etc… all ways to kill a great organization. As leaders we need to embrace that we have a tremendous impact on how functional our organizations are. As a Pastor or Organizational Leader, you can probably identify several of these that you could improve on. I did. -Kevin