When your Staff Turnover is High and Morale is Low; You need help from the Outside with the Fixing

You spend some good time thinking about your organisation's needs as it's leaders and you have people who work hard at putting out just the right job ads in the right places. Therefore, you just the right applications you need. You call in the best suited candidates that meet your task requirements and you pick the one with the best credentials from amongst them. You offer compensation and benefits that are rather competitive or attractive or at least, not in a way anyone can call bad.

You get people problems. Folks don't get along despite the "Ra Ra" in the workplace you try to create through various activities and programmes. When problems occur, nobody wants to take the responsibility, with conversations something along the lines of:

"It's HR's problem."

"No, Finance has to deal with this, I am not getting involved."

"Let sales handle it. They created this problem right?"

"Don't talk to me."

Worse than the above? You have silence. Problems arise, because planning or foresight was poor. Then, those same problems continue to linger, because nobody addresses those problems. The boss has too much on the hands, quite truly. And people go, every now and then. HR is always busy replacing exiting staff. The pace of the Staff turnover is such, that until HR gets new people in and until line supervisors or managers are done with orientating or training the new recruits, the organisation is always stretched or short, of hands.

Let's do the checklist:

1. Getting people with right competencies - Not a problem

2. Compensation and benefits are good - Not a problem

Then why high Staff Turnover (compared to similar businesses on the market)? Why the lingering issues that act as an obstacle to organisational performance? Often yourself saying:

"We spend so much on retreats and motivational programmes"

"People have fun and coming back energised from our outdoor retreats"

"We employ rigorous change management strategies"

"We have spent so much on Change or Change Management Consultants"

"We have certifications. We are a People Developer organisation. Our processes can't be wrong"

Well, you are still not retaining staff. Your people are not helping you solve problems. They are not taking initiative often enough. They are pushing issues, responsibilities and work. And you have frequent conflicts in the workplace. Your managers get very busy with these. Lesser time obviously, it should mean in your mind, for increasing profits.

Here is perhaps what is in order:

1. Get someone from the outside of your organisation (and industry), who is not a psychologist, not a counsellor, not an academic and not an expert on your business or your product.

2. Get someone who is able to observe people and processes

3. Your staff need not know this person or the purpose of this person coming in. Just make sure you're not getting such a person in to spy on your people and that you also make sure, your people don't feel that way.

4. Give this person a desk in a department, in a corner in the office, for a fair duration of time. Perhaps a few days. Perhaps a week. Perhaps a little more. Let this person come in and out at different times, at random, to occupy that desk, with a computer and generic office supplies availed to all staff. Make sure that the desk is where, this outside person, has maximum visibility of day to day activity and interactions.

5. Shift this person, to another department or office, to repeat the above. And keep repeating until you have all your departments and office spaces covered.

6. Regularly, lend your ears to this outside observer, to tell you about what he sees and hears, and what he thinks about it from an outside perspective. The outside person, has to be objective. You, will need to be patient.

The objective of doing this is simple. You want to know the politics that are playing out in your organisation. You want to know what frustrates the people in your organisation. You want to know what hinders good relations, positive morale, right work ethos and performance in your organisation. You want to know, what you don't see or don't think about. And then you want to know, what another mind that knows business and management (not necessarily your business or management style) sees, as a root problem (or root problems) and as the solution (or, the solutions). Why would you want that? With what you have seen thus far, the way you have seen it all, your problems have not been solved.

You have had consultants with fancy presentations, theories, hypothesis and ideas that sound like they make sense walk into your meeting room or cabin. They charged hefty prices and walked away with the cheques. Your Staff Turnover and Morale issues have been recurrent nonetheless. It is a sign that reads; Throw that textbook away. You see, the problem is not just the morale, which is only symptomatic. It is not about the money, benefits or well-being programmes either. It goes deeper. Then again, somewhere within, you probably already know that. And yet, you probably have not quite been able to put a finger on it yet. Otherwise, you would not have those problems persisting now would you?

You need a mind that is unconventional, out of the box, one that is sufficient to have gotten through a business degree at a nicely ranked university, with good grades. Then you need a mind that has seen organisations from within and without. A mind that has witnessed problems, failures and successes. And you need that mind to be impartial. It cannot be your mind because we have already ruled that out. You need that mind also, to be neutral in terms of being free from influence; therefore a mind from outside your organisation and from outside your industry. This means, you get a fair and neutral perspective. And that however, you must remember, is useless, if the beholder cannot translate thought into words, most fluidly, so get a good and clear understanding of that mind thinks you need to do, to make the effort worthwhile.

And it is always useless to get views, views and views from a person, who cannot show you or walk you through that path of application and implementation.

You are probably wondering if this can actually work. You may have questions as to how this can work. A conversation would be healthy at this point with a proponent of such an idea to clear possible doubts. Well, if you are a CEO, COO, Country Director, Managing Director or any Decision Maker at any organisation facing issues of Staff Turnover and Low Morale, call Harish Shah (yours truly) at +65 94510637 to have any queries on your mind addressed.