Turnover – When Loyalty Runs Thin
Doyle Slayton | Feb 05, 2009 | Comments 28
People leave companies for many reasons… from new opportunities… to non-performance issues… to bad relationships with their boss. It’s clear that loyalty between organizations and employees is running thin.
We know turnover is costly and time consuming. It affects team stability and morale. Yet, keeping toxic attitudes and non-performers has the same effect… which leads to the idea that in “some” instances turnover is good.
Let’s talk about this concept… How do you differentiate between “good” turnover and “bad” turnover?
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Filed Under: Blog • Featured • Leadership • Reader Questions • Sales • SalesTaxi
Useless topic. Useless question. Whatz the purpose of differentiating between the two and watz the relevance to Sales.
Great thoughts Doyle.
I believe: Good Turnover is when the collective benefits.For instance, a non-engaged “terrorist” employee who brings everyone around them down. Bad Turnover is when someone leaves because of a terrorist boss or co-worker, etc. Thanks.
Doyle, I would have to agree. There are both kinds of turnover, good and bad. I have seen both over the course of my career. More often, I have seen people with toxic attitudes and the occasional non-performers. Non-performers are fairly easy to identify and eliminate. The most difficult to identify tends to be those with toxic attitudes.
Anyone have advice on identifying these types of people?
Bad turnover is when your productivity is falling. Bad turnover probably includes losing proficient faster than the staff gaining proficiencies. Bad turnover is when your proficient staff ends up at your competitors.
Reverse the above for examples of good turnover. If you can envision being more productive with less turnover, your turnover is going the wrong way.
Of course you can sacrifice long-term profit for short-term gain. We all know that’s a judgment call that sometimes requires turnover decisions.
One of the biggest mistakes made is not to fire the toxic, negative, non-productive people in an organization. If your best people are leaving, then as a manager you have to look at yourself, or bring someone from outside for a more objective opinion. A negative attitude is like a cancer, and can make good workers turn bad.
This is a question close to my heart! Generally I help companies reduce turnover (hiring right the first time), but sometimes turnover is healthy and necessary. Business needs to be grow healthy and adapt – and business is the people.
Enter: Leadership Lesson 101 – my biggest, several years ago.
You can adjust or train for productivity, but a toxic cell will not grow into a healthy one! What’s more it becomes a cluster and spreads – we call it cancer.
What started out as a nagging ‘irritation’ in our team (a very high producer) became a cancer in what was previously incredibly successful and harmonious, diverse team.
In those days I was overly tolerant, led strongly from the front but (to be truthful) not tough enough to confront when needed. I had built a high performing organization that ran on cooperation trust….Today I would recognize the ‘bad’ cell for its potential cancerous force and address it. If it didnt respond to treatment, I would cut it out for the health and wellbeing of the ‘body’.
Sometimes leaders must make hard decisions, they will be misunderstood and go through some pain, but that is what we took on: to lead! It’s an interesting twist that necessary turnover (disruption) will often occur when it is most inconvenient – like when the toxic influence keeps topping the sales and growth. Big questions…but they set the tone and clarity of values for your business and future.
….Conversely, turnover always deserves some introspection. Is it an issue of loyalty? Is it a lone case or widespread? how long have the symptoms been brewing, and…why?…how? Good leadership questions.
3 Toxic Attitude – Identification Tip:
1. listen to the people on your team (toxic = the people EVERYONE seems to have difficulty working with)
2. listen to other departments (toxic = the salespeople who no one wants to interact with)
3. listen to your gut (toxic = the people who you roll your eyes every time you have to interact with them – maybe just inside, but you know you role them!)
Difficulty – when they produce sales at a level that the organization feels they need to keep.
Safety Tip – many times they “cost” more in lost sales due to lost motivation than they bring in.
Corrective Action Option: have an attitude policy that people can use to shut the person down without feeling like jerks… so be a little tongue in cheek with it (one of my clients talks about “hater blockers” and then her team will say “do I need to put my hater blockers on to talk with you today?”).
The number one Rule in Marketing and Sales is LOVE YOUR CUSTOMERS.
The number one rule in HR is teach your staff to LOVE YOUR CUSTOMERS through your example of loving, encouraging and coaching them.
My former employer, a $200 Billion multi national oil company didn’t recognize that. In fact, $99 per year for additional training in customer relations and sales was too much money to spend on their employees. It doesn’t take a former aerospace engineer (although I am one) to realize the folly of ways and why their ROI is so low.
Great question and challenging topic.
The ‘antioxidant’ is an environment where great reps can achieve their financial goals and continue to be challenged professionally, creating multiple leadership role models for others. That also helps free the manager to remove obstacles for the whole team instead of being bogged down in task-policing underperformers.
I find both Allen and Lizs points right on. After removing the cancer, I believe it is more critical to quickly and accurately ‘Diagnose AND cure’ the source. What turned that star so sour? If you can’t irradicate that your asking for an even deadlier recurrence.
Hi Doyle,
The two concepts are directly connected to the culture of the sales organization. Most top performers leave/stay with organizations based on their relationship with thier driect manager. The same manager is the one most likely to make a call on a poor performer. As a result your fornt line managers are key to building a high performance organization. I spend a great deal of time training and coaching these people to spend more time coaching their high performers and making difficult assessments on the folks who are not performing.
Steven
Nearly impossible to identify toxic attitudes without a sensitive Behavioral assessment tool. (We just happen to use one we developed for our Coaching/Consulting processes.)Popular “Personality” tests, like MBTI, DiSC, or Birkman don’t cut it. U of Michigan reports that actual interviews are 2% more effective than tossing a coin. Let me know if you want to complete a free Demo Profile. lon.bason@flippengroup.com – 972.770.3547
You are absolutely right. If you do nothing your performers can become irriated and less productive as well as everyone else in the company. Non Performers or “poor attitudes” need help sometimes and other times they need to go away.
Bad Bosses Just Suck
Employees who don’t do the job they were hired for will bring others down and affect the attitude of everyone they work with. However, in my experience the trouble usually starts at the top with a boss who is so controlling, that people are afraid to do the jobs they were hired for in fear of losing them.
The tone of the culture is set by the leadership of the organization from the top down.
Leadership development is key. “Toxic Boss” and “Working for an Idiot” are examples of books that outline the qualities of inept leaders. That’s the problem right there— leaders who aren’t competent, which can lead to disappointing attitudes of employees. Read the books!
Well, I think if it’s useless to you, you’re probably a product of good turnover.
Cheers!
M.
This is a great question and thank you for the opportunity to comment. Organizations need to constantly monitor turnover. What appears to be “good” turnover can also be considered “bad” turnover. For example, turnover can be a result of a mismatch between the job and the employee. An unhappy, unproductive employee could be one that is simply not in the right job. Leaders and managers need to do a better job at looking for opportunities within the organization to reassign employees if at all possible.
The issue of turnover has always interested me. As a manager I think a reasonable amount of turnover is ultimately healthy for the organization. The worst mistake one can make is leaving poor performers or trouble makers in their respective positions too long. Most of your reps know that poor performers need to eventually go, and people with bad attitudes have a negative effect on your A & B players. The dirty little secret is that when the manager finally pulls the trigger the thought that runs through most reps head is: What took so long! Head the truism: No breath is better than bad breath in a territory.
Another recruitment trap managers fall into is not starting the recuitment process until after the rep has been asked to leave. This often leads to bad hiring decisions as the longer a territory stays open the better the crappy resumes on your desk start to look.
Think of recruitment as an ongoing business objective. Introduce yourself to your competitors reps at trade shows, advertise a sales position even when you are not in need of a rep just to meet some quality sales people during a time when you are not under the gun to pick any warm body.
Sounds to me like you are a PERFECT example of good turnover!
Cheers,
M. Sales Manager
Turnover…big costs when done wrong, still difficult and painful even when done right. The most common issues I have run into relate to two areas already mentioned.
1)Bad Hiring Practices
2)Managers who would rather be their employees’ friend than their manager.
The most critical is the hiring process. When we approach an interview from a point of need & desperation, in effect, we “give the cookie” to the applicant. Our questions are wrong, we try to sell them on joining us, we misinterpret their responses because we want to hear something from them. That gives them the power.
I don’t want to sound too obtuse, it’s just one of my pet peeves. When we hire someone, we make commitments to them and they to us. The employer/manager commits to providing an opportunity for the employee to achieve a level of success, for which they will be rewarded and recognized. The employee commits to performing their job to the best of their ability within the guidelines laid out by their manager. They commit to represent the organization in a positive manner.
When a manager makes a poor hiring decision, one or both of these commitments are destined to be broken.
Then, we have the wrong people in the wrong positions!
The analogy to cancer is right on! A negative opinion leader will drag down the entire team if you let them. When we see someone who is bent on undermining others, we must move quickly. The pain (and cost)of pruning them out early is much less than that, which comes from trying to ignore it. That being said, I recommend that managers who must terminate the relationship be as thoughtful as possible. I try to help the person realize that they have value and skills, which will be a better fit in another venue. Usually, it’s not a bad person, it’s a bad fit.
Great response!
Many times, the people who are “toxic” are so because they must pull down others to feed their own ego. It gets down to…”I can’t be okay if you are seen as good. Therefore, I must make you less successful.” By demotivating their peers and colleagues, their own performance looks better. (In their own eyes, anyway.)
I don’t think loyalty should be a part of the equation. If the opportunity and culture of the organization is good, there isn’t an issue. When it is not, the only person that is going to take care of you…is you. Why is it that the disloyal discussion is always placed on the individual and not the organization? In my mind, because in the end the organization’s needs always outweigh that of the individual. Therefore in my opinion this discussion is irrelevant. The company of One is you. Care for your brand, product and reputation as if your life depends on it….because it does.
Turnover is a double edged sword. Good turnover, the elimination of non contributing members is good for the team overall. Bad turnover is when you lose your key contributors.
Having studied this what surprised me was the leading reason why key contributors leave is not Money, it’s the feeling their contribution is not appreciated.
I think it depends on whether you are keeping your thinkers and doers, or the Players in the organization.
I find that toxic reps are usually underachievers. They tend to get jealous of the rep(s) who are succeeding. However, there can be a tendency for a hiachiever to rub their success in the face of their under performing teammate. I think there needs to be a good balance and it’s up to the sales manager to correct both behaviors. If he/she doesn’t, then you could have an instance of “good turnover” for both of them!
I think it depends on whether you are keeping your thinkers and doers, or the Players in the organization.
One of my favorite truisms is “Everyone always brings happiness to this place…some when they come and some when they leave…”
Of course, you KNOW which one it is–the question is how do you put up with the toxic ones until they leave?
The bad cell reference is apropo. You have to contain them, treat them and their polluted speech, or else remove them. How much $$ they bring in the door determines how much the biz puts up with and for how long.
I’m a business consultant and auditor, and sometimes I remove myself from a gig because the atmosphere is so toxic the management can’t think straight to make the appropriate changes. Now that’s a messed up place, and making a few minor employee changes won’t help if the upper management is the source of the malcontent and ill vibes.
Great post. I believe that loyalty is part of the relationship building phase. It is the hardest part of the process to measure. This is where time and money spent on the relationship building part of the sales process pay off. I have written a similar post on my sales blog as well. Please check it out! Keep up the good work.