Oh joy. A new study of 25,000 employees, working in more than 1,000 different companies across 20 industries spread across Northern America, Europe, Asia, and Australia was done over the 12 months of 2018.

43% of employees said that they would be likely to leave their current companies if they were offered a 10% pay rise elsewhere. That number was up from 25% in their 2017 survey.

The report says that weak company cultures are to blame, while the author thinks the strong job market is also responsible.

I disagree, because if the majority of the stuff listed below is actually fixed it will take a lot more than a 10% raise to attract someone to a culture that probably has those same problems.

Here is the list.

1. Technical issues with software, and other tools
2. Interruptions and disruptions from Slack, emails and noisy office environments
3. Poor communication from management / lack of training and information
4. Disorganized and time-wasting systems and processes
5. Misguided decisions from management / bad leadership
6. Lack of flexibility / no opportunities to work from home
7. Overworked / under resourced team
8. Office politics / favoritism
9. Difficult customers
10. Too many meetings

The sheer size of the responding group means smart bosses will take note of these irritants; most are fixable without much impact on the budget.

Most require changes the boss can effect or, at least, influence. People aren’t stupid, they know their boss can’t change the whole company. But if they change what they can and keep working on the others, their people will stay and work with them.

What often matters most is that bosses recognize that they are part, if not all, of the problem and are honestly trying to change.

Image credit: Emma

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written. Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

I’ve never been a fan of so-called stars. Bosses constantly waste their time, not to mention their budgets, looking for stars. As with everything, stars are often a product of a specific ecosystem and set of circumstances which are rarely duplicated in the new environment.You have only to take a hard look at Marissa Mayer’s history to see the problem in action. Read other Golden Oldies here.

Are you already a devotee of insanely smart hiring, in the process of changing after reading insanely stupid hiring or somewhere in-between?

Wherever your MAP is on the subject there is one thing about hiring that you need to wrap your head around if you want your career to flourish.

You can not hire stars, but you can create and maintain them.

This is as true of executives and management as it is of workers at all levels.

Think of hiring in terms of planting a garden—only these plants have feet.

You’re at the nursery and find a magnificent rose. It’s large, because it’s several years old, has dozens of blooms and buds and is exactly what you wanted for a particular space in your yard.

The directions say that the rose needs full sun to thrive, while the space in your yard only gets four to five hours of morning sun. But the rose is so gorgeous you can’t resist, convincing yourself that those hours from sunrise to 11 will be enough, so you take it home and plant it.

It seems to do OK at first, but as time goes by it gets more straggly and has fewer and fewer blooms.

Finally, you give it to your friend who plants it in a place that gets sun from early morning to sunset.

By the end of the next summer the rose is enormous, covered in blooms and has sprouted three new canes.

One of the things that insanely smart hiring does is ensure that people are planted where they will flourish, whether they are already thriving or are leaving an inhospitable environment.

I said earlier that people are like plants with feet. Abuse a plant, whether intentionally or through neglect, and it will wither and eventually die; abuse your people and sooner or later they will walk.

Insanely smart hiring also gives you a giant edge whether the people market is hot or cold.

By knowing exactly what you need, your culture, management style and the environment you have to offer you are in a position to find hidden and unpolished jewels, as well as those that have lost their luster by being in the wrong place. (Pardon the mixed metaphors. Ed)

These are often candidates that other managers pass on, but who will become your stars—stars with no interest in seeking out something else.

They recognize insanely smart opportunities when they see them.

Flickr image credit: Ryan Somma

Back in October Twitter and IBM announced a new service to give enterprise a way to mine its 15 billion daily tweets.

Of the research done since the, one result surprised them.

The more a customer shops at a particular store or eats at a particular restaurant, the more likely they are to stop shopping there when employees leave. It stands to reason that you would get to know the people at a place you patronize often, but IBM found that really loyal customers get so attached to employees that they complain on Twitter about having to “start over” if a favorite employee leaves. If they don’t feel like employees know them, this can really impact revenue because the loyal customers are the ones who spend the most money.

Do you find that surprising? I don’t, having done the same thing myself. (I’ve also switched brands when a favorite was acquired by a company I didn’t trust.)

Cost of customer acquisition is the most critical, prime metric when valuing any business, from startup through Fortune 50.

For the last few decades the prime focus has been on investors, while customers came in a long second; IBM’s findings move customers much closer to investors.

Why employee turnover results in customer defections isn’t the least surprising.

It’s a well accepted dictum that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers — or leave because of management turnover, so customers leaving for a similar reason makes sense.

However, employees are still a long third behind investors and customers.

When I started writing this blog back in 2006 I cited research by Frederick Reichheld that proved a 5% improvement in employee retention translated to a 25%-100% gain in earnings.

You would think that a 25% earnings increase, let alone higher, would be enough to get the attention of even the greediest Wall Street types, but obviously not, since low employee turnover is still cause for amazement.

Perhaps the new Twitter/IBM findings will help drive the needed change.

Image credit: BetterWorks Breakroom

The hourly base wage for fast-food workers in Denmark is $20USD, yet McDonald’s, Burger King, etc., are still profitable.

Try to sell a minimum wage increase to just $15 and you’ll be told that it would destroy jobs and close businesses.

But, as the song goes, it ain’t necessarily so.

Despite starting out with just a $35,000 investment in 1978, The Container Store founder and CEO Kip Tindell has grown his business to one that has 67 US locations and rings up annual sales of nearly $800 million.

Equally impressive is the fact that he’s done all that while paying his retail employees nearly twice the industry average.

So what does Tindell know that other bosses of retail businesses don’t? You get what you pay for…

• “The 1=3 rule,” i.e., one great employee is as productive as three OK employees, so he gets three times the productivity of an average worker at only two times the cost.
• Turnover is lower substantially reducing hiring and training costs.
• Annual raises up to 8% of their salaries, based on performance, but
• encourages managers to evaluate employees based on their value to the company.

The result is the average Container Store retail salesperson makes nearly $50,000; about double the national average for retail.

When it comes to wages, Kip Tindell is the Twenty-first Century’s Henry Ford.

Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 per day wage ($110 today), which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers. (…) The move proved extremely profitable…

The minimum wage war should become a lot more interesting when Tindell takes over as chair of the National Retail Federation.

It’s a lot harder to argue with success.

Flickr image credit: Tomer Gabel

Parallels are constantly drawn between business and sports—building and motivating teams, leading in all its many guises and, of course, the importance and power of stars—whether first round draft choice or coder from the hot startup.

I am not a believer in stars and have written numerous times on why they are a bad idea.

I frequently told I’m wrong, especially sports-wise; I’m told that every winning team has stars or they wouldn’t be winning

Not true and thanks to Craig Bohl, North Dakota State’s football coach, I have someone to point who has a very winning team sans stars.

Since 2011, the Bison have posted Division I’s best winning percentage (36-2, .947), slightly ahead of Alabama (33-2, .943) and Oregon (32-3, .914). N.D.S.U. has beaten four Football Bowl Subdivision opponents in four years, most recently the defending Big 12 champion, Kansas State, in this season’s opener on Aug. 30, and is 7-3 against F.B.S. teams since 2006.

Bohl’s understands that with the right attitude and hard work he can build his own star team.

“A lot of our guys come from the farm or hard-working backgrounds, and we’ve leveraged that as we’ve developed our football team. It goes a little counterculture to the way college football is now, with spreads, up-tempo offenses and all those other things. We’ve taken a blue-collar approach on playing hard-nosed, physical, disciplined football, great defense, controlling the football. That’s how we’ve won.”

He’s pragmatic; he doesn’t believe his winners have to walk on water; they just need to be damn good.

“I don’t think there’s a team in the country that would absolutely destroy us, 70-0, or anything like that. Obviously, there are teams that have more talent than we do. I won’t deny that either. But I think we could hold our own with a lot of teams out there.”

Bohl’s approach isn’t rocket science, other than few other coaches want to bother building a team this way or prefer splashier players whose glory can provide a halo effect for coaches and teammates alike.

While Bohl qualifies as a star, and there is constant talk about who will lure him away, he doesn’t seem to be interested.

And he stays for the same reason talented employees always stay.

“When you find a place that fits your value system, the allure of ‘what the big time is’ is not such a big hook.”

Image credit: Ilco

Bosses’ tasks may differ depending on their position, level, industry, etc., but one thing is identical for all of them—communicating.

Here is my small effort to clearly explain exactly what is required of every boss at every level in every company and at all times.

• Your goal is to provide your people with all the information needed to understand how to perform their work as correctly, completely, simply, and efficiently as possible.

• You do this by providing clear, concise, and complete communications at all times. This is about more than talking clearly, it’s about providing all the background necessary for people in the company to understand why they are doing their jobs, as well as what jobs they are to do; it rarely involves telling them how to do their jobs.

You will know you are doing it correctly because productivity will improve, as will innovation; your company will be more successful, you will be a more effective manager, have less turnover and better reviews.

And as an added bonus everybody will be happier.

Flickr image credit: Wesley Fryer

How many times, especially these days, at a networking function have you asked someone what they do and gotten the reply, “I’m not working, I’m looking for my next opportunity.”

OK, a lot of people are looking, but that doesn’t answer the question.

Ask again and you might get the same answer, but if your face still has a look of inquiry written on it you’ll get a second answer, “I’m a [whatever].”

It’s sad when people choose to define themselves based upon how they earn a living; worse when, as in the example above, employment becomes the career validation without which the career ceases to exist.

Bad as those are, the worst is when people take another step and subconsciously merge their identity with that of their company—I call it ego-merge.

I coined the term in the eighties to describe a state of mind that is not only unhealthy for individuals, but also damaging to the companies for which they work.

Ego-merge is what happens when “me” and “my company” meld together in the mind of the employee, whether worker or manager.

It’s most obvious in tough times and most noticeable in conversation when people use “because” instead of “and” when talking about accomplishments, thereby crediting the company or manager for their skills.

“I’m great because my company/manager is great.” instead of, “I’m great and my company/manager is great.”

At first glance ego-merge might actually seem to be a positive for companies—but it’s not.

When employees’ egos merge with their company’s, they often blame themselves for the company’s problems even when they have little power and may not have any line responsibility.

No matter how great their work environment, feeling responsible is a major productivity sapper when times are tough—employees with ego-merge have a difficult time believing that

• it’s not their fault;
• their manager doesn’t blame them;
• they are good enough to help turn the company around,

because in their minds their skills and talent are good because of their manager/company.

Ego-merge affects the best companies/managers, where people are very involved, have high esprit de corps and are passionate about their mission and success.

But it also happens with more Machiavellian managers who intentionally foster the attitude within their organization as a retention tool.

Ego-merge does, in fact, encourage people to stay, but it also cripples them, ruins their creativity, saps their initiative and reduces their long term value to the company.

It’s every company/manager’s responsibility to help their people grow and become stronger, not to subtly cripple them in the hopes that they won’t leave.

In fact, it’s in the best interest of both the manager and the company to become people-builders.

Join me tomorrow for a look at how to recognize and avoid ego-merge, as well as why people-building pays off.

Flickr image credit: Seth Anderson

Buying startups and shutting down their business in the name of acquiring talent is a hot trend—and one easily destined to fail.

Talent retention in ‘acqui-hiring’ fails most often for the same reason it has always failed—culture.

And before anyone offers the ‘large company culture vs. startup culture’ argument let me point out that Google and Facebook are large companies, not startups.

Retaining acquired talent isn’t a new problem and I addressed it in 2006 from the other side, i.e., a young company wanting to maintain its culture as it acquired smaller companies.

Realistically speaking, I don’t care how cool the culture and perks at Google and Facebook are, there is no way they or similar companies can provide true startup culture, camaraderie, or environment.

But it is amusing (if you don’t own their stock) to watch them try.

In the same vein, why is it so surprising when long-term employees leave?

The media loves to feature stories about turnover at Google, Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, Amazon, even Microsoft and other startup-no-longer companies, while ignoring the same turnover at Cisco, Intel and. IBM

When will they learn?

Those who get a thrill creating something from nothing and building foundations may start losing interest when the scaffolding for higher stories goes up and become totally disinterested when the walls go in.

High salaries, excessive stock options, even powerful positions may hold them, but retention doesn’t always translate to productivity or cultural harmony.

All I can say is caveat emptor and don’t whine if (when) it doesn’t work.

Flickr image credit: AKZOphoto

“I don’t want to overstate the case. I think about 40 percent of people just are not going to be good at innovating regardless of what they do. And 5 percent are born with the instinct.” — Clayton M. Christensen, professor, HBS

So a group of HBS profs with different expertise got together to identify what they call “The Innovator’s DNA” so the other 55% could learn to be innovators.

First they identified five primary skills: associating, observing, questioning, networking, and experimenting.

• First and foremost, innovators are good at associational thinking, or simply associating. They make connections between seemingly unrelated problems and ideas and synthesize new ideas.
• Innovators observe things, then question why.
• Networking is a skill that innovators use to identify and develop ideas by spending time with a diverse group of people with different backgrounds and experiences.
• Finally, innovators are constantly experimenting.

There’s a lot more in the article, but I want to focus on the 40%, because I can just hear all the managers and entrepreneurs saying to themselves, “Whoa; I’m not going to hire any of those 40% people,” Or words to that effect.

And that is just plain stupid.

First of all, that would make 55% of the population unemployable.

More importantly, you need both on your team to truly succeed.

But that still isn’t my point today.

Please take as a given that you need both on your team to truly succeed (if you think it through you’ll understand why).

Now pay attention, because here’s the point I want to drive home.

You cannot run your organization with 100% innovators.

There are dozens of critical jobs in every organization that need the skills of the 40%.

Those positions require a focus on what is, not what might be.

With all the focus on innovation, the 40% is getting short shift. In fact, I know many who left jobs/teams/bosses they loved, because they no longer felt valued; they knew they weren’t innovators, so they stopped believing they could contribute and left.

Only a few of those bosses ever understood they were the cause.

Image credit: raja4u

An excellent article on loyalty citing research from various Wharton professors on the subject of worker loyalty is a valuable read.

It’s good for bosses and employees alike; the former can use it to analyze and improve their approach, while the latter can give a printout (anonymously, if necessary) to their boss.

One of the most valuable findings is that in some ways nothing has changed on the employee retention front over the years.

Human nature, Harter adds, “doesn’t change when the economy changes. It might take on a different dynamic” during a recession, but what remains constant is “the need to be connected — to a manager, a co-worker and/or a purpose, and also the need to be recognized.” People’s perceptions of their own standards of living “did drop as the economy dropped,” he says. But that same drop was not registered in workplaces where employees said they have “someone who encourages their development. There is something about having a mentor, or someone in your life who helps you see the future in the midst of chaos, that can make a difference.”

Wharton marketing professor Deborah Small cites a body of research on what is called “procedural fairness,” indicating that much of what employees feel about an organization “is not the outcomes they get, but the processes. If people feel like processes are handled fairly in the organization, even if they don’t get the best for themselves,” that would tend to encourage loyalty.

Recognition, fairness, being valued and encouraged to grow are still the most powerful intangibles when it comes to retention and their source is still the immediate boss and maybe their boss.

As I wrote last year, caring begets caring and the actions that show you care aren’t found in compensation packages.

Flickr image credit: fsse8info