Why Leaders Need to Take a Walk in 2021 so Their Employees Don’t!

I’m not suggesting that you take a hike or leave because everyone is irritated by your behavior. On the contrary, I am asking you to take a walk, and become more involved in driving the success of your organization, so your employees don’t decide to walk out the door! I will explain the walk further along in the article. For now, let us discuss turnover.

Turnover

According to the “2019 Work Institute Retention Report,” U.S. voluntary turnover will hit 35% by 2023, placing companies in continuous and enormous risk.

If that news wasn’t bad enough, it gets worse. According to the president of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Johnny C. Taylor Jr., we now have more jobs than people to do them, which means our labor shortages are going to get worse.

One can only conclude that when you find employees, you better retain them!

Why is turnover rising so sharply? According to DDI, a global leadership consulting firm, 57% of employees quit because of bad managers and another 32% are considering resignation.

Clearly, how we are managing employees is not working! But let’s be honest, though. This is a reflection on leadership too. Employees also quit because leaders have either turned a blind eye to the bad management, or were unaware of it, and, ultimately, took no action to correct it. Trust me, employees know whether you’re involved, care, and support them. If, as a leader, you fail to demonstrate those points, in no uncertain terms, you won’t retain employees - period. The good news is you have the power to right the ship! In fact, you are the only person who can.

So, are you struggling with turnover? Are your new recruits exiting-stage-left faster than you can train them? If your HR director has amended the onboarding guide, outlining life raft locations and detailed instructions for jumping ship, then perhaps it’s time to make a change.

How can we significantly improve retention? What is the secret to turning job-hoppers into lifers?

Well, given the statistics from DDI, retraining and reskilling your frontline managers to engage, hearts, hands, and minds is a great place to start. Words matter! How your managers talk to and treat employees is everything. But remember, employees also resign because of uninvolved and disengaged leaders. Therefore, increasing retention, and getting ahead of the turnover curve, also requires a different type of leadership. I call it Macro-Team Leadership. Before I get into the particulars of this model, let us take a closer look at why traditional models don’t cut the employee retention mustard!

Top-down Leadership

Far too often, leaders isolate themselves at the top of their respective organizations. Mission, strategy, process, procedure etc. are determined by senior leaders, independently of employees, and then sent down the chain. This sends a noticeably clear message that leaders are uninvolved, disengaged, don’t care, and are unsupportive. Whether inadvertent or not, that is the message that employees receive. This disconnects leaders and employees, further divides, causes disengagement, decreases productivity, and increases, you guessed it, turnover! Employees don’t react well to authoritative orders or instructions. They want to be involved, be part of the process, and make a positive contribution.

Employees don’t want to own the farm. They just want to feel like they are cultivating growth, proudly driving the company combine, and sharing the harvest with leaders and managers who care.

Bottom-up Leadership

While bottom-up leadership moves in the right direction, giving employees more opportunity to contribute, it doesn’t necessarily solve the problem, either. While greater authority and autonomy is offered to teams on the front line, a hands-off approach is often adopted by management and leadership. Without recognition, praise, and feedback, employees lose motivation. Without communication, the brain and hands of the organization (leadership, senior management & middle management) have no idea what the feet are doing, much less which direction they are headed. If they are walking into a precarious situation, they may not communicate with the brain, which would direct them to change course and avoid a potential pitfall or impending disaster. You can, and should, allow employees to run with their roles and responsibilities. Without the right leadership and management, however, they will run wild and off the reservation. In this model, once again, employees are disconnected from leadership.

Team Building

We talk about team-building all the time, yet many forget about the biggest team of all – the company or macro-team. How often are micro-teams assembled in companies, which operate in silos and fail to cross-collaborate and communicate up and down the central nervous system of the organization? In many instances, managers and employees act in accordance with their own advancement and self-interest, and not for the overall success of the company. We should create micro-teams, but, when doing so, they must be connected to the macro-team and operate for the greater good. When using traditional leadership, a company rarely functions as a cohesive unit. Engagement is minimal if there is any at all. Communication is at best disjointed and dysfunctional and at worst it is non-existent. Gallup’s 2020 State of the Workplace Report conforms those points: 

• Only 13% of employees strongly agree the leadership of their organization communicates effectively with the rest of the organization.
• Only 23% of employees strongly agree their manager provides meaningful feedback to them.
• Only 33% of employees are engaged in the U.S. workplace.

Macro-Team Leadership

As I mentioned previously, if leaders are going to fix these issues, and get ahead of the turnover curve, then a new model of leadership is in order. That model is called Macro-Team Leadership.

So, here’s where you get to take a walk – literally! Below is a brief outline of the Macro-Team Leadership model: 

1.     Visit the front line weekly.

A leader walks the floor with frontline managers, engages employees, reaffirms his or her support as well as strategy and goals. They demonstrate caring, forge positive relationships, and elicit feedback, suggestions, and ideas.  

2.     Retrain & reskill frontline managers.

Frontline managers are reskilled with two-dimensional communication or RFDO feedback. They are retrained to build a culture of caring. They learn how to become master communicators, coaches, mentors, and motivators. They ask frontline employees for their opinions. They elicit solutions for process improvement and generate innovative ideas. 

3.     Create a central chain of communication.

Process improvements that are implemented, or any innovative idea or suggestion that is submitted by employees, is designated as such, tagged with the employee’s name, and sent up the central communication chain to the leader on each level until it reaches the top. 

4.     Create lateral, level-wide communication and collaboration.

At each level, the leader shares information, which has been sent up the chain, laterally with all employees. Then the information is forwarded up the chain until it reaches the top.

 5.     Confirm, collaborate, recognize, praise and reward.  

The leader recognizes, praises, and rewards employees, or explores other suggestions or ideas, in collaboration with frontline managers and employees, during his or her weekly frontline walk.  

6.     Make mid-level visits monthly.

Once frontline managers have been trained, and communication has been established, a leader should then visit mid-levels and use the same step-one approach. 

Of course, the exact framework can vary depending on organizational structure, but that is the basic outline for Macro-Team Leadership.

Now, some leaders might respond to this model by saying, “I don’t have time for that!” I say, "You can either make time now to retain your employees or you will make time later when you are struggling to find new ones." You have a choice. 

If you’d like to learn more about implementing the Macro-Team Leadership model in your company, message me here on LinkedIn or contact me directly at [email protected].

 Regards, 

David Roppo

Coach & Consultant

#leadership #management #leadershipdevelopment #managertraining #turnover #employeeretention