Should I stay or Should I go? One of the most common questions in the workforce nowadays and the negative impact in your organization.

How do I know when enough is enough to keep on the boat? Founders, Owners, and CEOs, when will you realize you’re losing talent due to bad leadership? Or take action to prevent it?

As an experienced consultant with over 20 years working in business development, permanent and executive recruitment (and everything in between), I’ve been engaged with companies in different sectors, and what I’ve found as one of the main challenges that is putting, not only the growth, but the existence of some companies, is mind-blowing.

In the last few years I have seen a shift in the way companies hire, but more important and worrisome is the strategy of most companies to retain their talent - or the lack of strategy whatsoever.

Turnover is costly, and losing your top talent is even more costly, but hiring wrong, well that is shooting yourself in the foot.

As published in the Harvard Business Review article from July 04, 2022, according to Gartner, the pace of turnover was forecasted to be 50% - 75% higher than before, and the greatest challenge for organizations is the time taken to fill roles which rose the 18% longer than pre-pandemic levels. As of today, those numbers look uglier.

The same report found that 65% of employees are now reconsidering the role of work in their lives! One of the primary reasons why people leave their work is - the lack of career progression.

Thus, if you are looking to progress your career, you feel lost and don’t know what to do - you are not alone, I hope this article will help you to gain some clarity. For founders, owners, and chief executives, hopefully, this article will help you to understand the magnitude of not having the right retention strategy.?

Trying to make an impact by hitting a wall.

Lately, I’ve been reading studies, articles, and books about how to become, what many calls, an A player, either in a solo contributor role, as a part of a team, as a leader who reports to another leader, and so on.

All that literature is amazing, has many points to consider, makes you rethink the way we are working, and definitely creates an internal motivation for many. What I found is missing is a crucial piece - what happens when I tried dozens of times with the same result, what if I feel burned out and with no way out??

This is a really important point because, despite the positive messages and attitudes towards work that literature brings to any individual, it can create more harm than good. Why? Because I have talked to several people who have tried but they feel that are running with all their energy, best intentions, and motivation directly to a mortared stone wall. And that just adds to the already demoralized individual, it creates more frustration, anger, and disappointment.

So what should we do?

Well, I don’t have the answer but in my opinion, everyone should evaluate their own situation. I believe at work as in any other relationship, you need more than one person to work alongside to be successful, and if one of those pieces is not aligned, it's simple - no matter what you do, won’t work.

We all have been there and done that and in my case, I have the souvenir to prove it. Yes, doing our best and being the change you want to see is a great objective, I won’t argue that - but at which price?

With that I’m not saying you should not try, on the contrary, I don’t think you should consider leaving the company as your first option (unless something really delicate is happening within the company or how is affecting your health)

There are many support books that can help those individual contributors, one of the best books I have read on this is Impact Players by Liz Wiseman, she points out in a great manner how we can make that change that some organizations need, how to elevate your game and become a better self at work. Even if you can’t make that change and you end up changing jobs, creating value and being your best self will pay off in your personal life and at work, again if not in your current, definitely in your next one. Moreover, it will help you to change your vision and I’m sure will also help you to land a more suitable job for your goals.

To the founders, owners, and chief executives.

I can only imagine how busy each of you is, but let’s be honest you own, have created, or lead an organization for a reason, whatever that reason is I truly believe the end goal is to be successful and create profit along the way.

For that you need to know where are you standing, as a sports team coach, or as a chef, you must come down from your daily activities and perform what I believe is one of your responsibilities, to measure the temperature of each room, to see how things are. I understand you have hired professionals you highly trust to perform that job, but that doesn’t mean they are error-proof, everyone has their shortcomings, and how that will affect your organization will depend on how quickly you act on them.

As mentioned in Gartner’s report and in many others such as McKinsey, most of the employees are not happy at their current job, the main reasons are: poor leadership and lack of career progression, the latter really tied to how the leader leads.

In the last few months, I have seen so many things wrong, mainly in sales (as my specialty) but across the organizations too, companies that hire a top performer, or a technical expert in a specific service product or market, and when it comes to lead, they have never done it or they are not the best at it - trust me when I say those leaders are diminishing the teams they are managing, your company is paying employees that most likely are performing at 50% or a bit higher, when in comparison, a good leader will bring the best out of your employees. Besides a few who are really good where they are and don’t want to progress in their career for whatever reason, the reality is that the vast majority of workers want something: create value, make an impact, and career progression.?

As research made by Mercer found, 8 out of 10 companies focus on individual goals whereas only 5 out of 10 work towards the goals of the broader business unit. Leaders who optimize for individual performance are likely to become more territorial about their talent. By keeping the “best” people on their team, they achieve the best outcomes (for them). However, this is to the detriment of the individual’s career development and YOUR organization’s ability to access its own talent.

So the outcome here is that the people you want to retain the most, feel constrained and most likely will eventually leave, risking the performance metrics they were highly protecting.

So what to do? Here is a sample of some of the many things you can do:

1. Take the time to “go down” and check with your leader’s teams (an important point, if your organization is already running based on fear, this most likely won't work and you will need an outside 3rd party to understand where you are at)
2. Clearly communicate the organization’s purpose and long-term vision - more important, live through it, there is nothing worse than offering water and giving oil.
3. Your career conversations should be focused on progression not promotion.
4. Don’t mute your organization, when people “stop complaining” it might not be because things are getting better, most likely is all the contrary.
5. Measure leaders on potential not performance.
6. Be sure your leaders are real leaders, if they are not, make absolutely sure they are good listeners and great learners.
7. Empower employees, wherever your organization is sitting on at this point, is thanks to your employees.

Crysthian.