Five Leadership Flaws to Avoid for Better Employee Retention
The fight against attrition largely depends on a company’s frontline leaders; in a 2020 study by Udemy, 51 percent of Millennials and Gen Z workers reported they had left a job because of their manager. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says each of those workers costs an average of $13,996 for their employer to replace.
With such a hefty price tag, it’s no wonder companies treat employee retention as crucial to their success — but, even so, quitting employees still costs US businesses an estimated one trillion dollars a year. Shockingly, roughly 78% of that is avoidable, according to a Work Institute report.
1. Being an adversary instead of an advocate.
Most employees want to succeed. They want their bosses to desire the same; one study found employees recognized by their manager for job performance in the last two weeks were 54 percent less likely to have recently interviewed for another job.
2. Not acting as a mentor.
Coaching and mentorship are tools good leaders use to help their employees succeed; Deloitte’s study on millennial employees in 2016 showed that workers with a mentor were twice as likely as their colleagues to be at the same job five years later. A whopping 94 percent of respondents told LinkedIn they would have stayed with their last job longer if leaders had invested in their learning.
3. Being reactive toward job satisfaction.
More than half of the workforce said they were either “actively disengaged” or “not engaged,” which makes them 87 percent more likely than their counterparts to leave their current job, according to TINYpulse.
Fifty-one percent of exiting employees in a Gallup survey said nobody questioned whether they were satisfied with their job or saw a future with their organization in the last three months.
4. Overlooking top employees.
High performers are usually goal-oriented and driven, which is why businesses mustn’t let bureaucracy rob them of their most talented staff. Internal candidates who applied for a job and received neither an interview nor feedback were twice as likely to quit — regardless of whether they were qualified for the job. The Harvard Business Review lamented that a business could lose its most valuable marketing employee because management didn’t seriously consider their application for a finance job.
5. Lackluster Inclusivity.
Less than half of employees feel their employer is doing enough to foster diversity. In contrast, a whopping 76 percent of employees stated it was an essential factor when applying to jobs during a Glassdoor survey.
In Conclusion,
Good leadership is vital to a company’s success, and today’s leaders must be adequately trained to avoid these simple pitfalls to retain more of the right employees. Those same employees would bring massive value to their workplace in experience and innovation if not for preventable mistakes by management.
When 78 percent of attrition is avoidable, savvy leadership should recognize that few projects can even hope to match the net present value of investing back in your workforce to create a culture of leadership, growth, and recognition.
