Jonathan was enjoying a quiet evening relaxing at home alone when he hit on the idea of taking a hot bath. “Nothing soothes those old aches and pains quite like a long soak,” he told himself as he filled the tub.
Soon the tub was brimming, and a tantalizing mist rose from the water. Jonathan climbed in and carefully lowered himself, relishing the contrast between the cool of the air and the steamy water. The tub was so splendidly full that it threatened to spill over. A little water even sloshed to the floor when he shifted to get comfortable. He soon slipped into a luxurious stupor, lulled by the warmth and the steady trickle of excess water pouring into the overflow drain.
After a while, though, he noticed that the water level continued to drop well below the opening to the overflow. He wasn’t too concerned at first, but soon his bent knees grew colder as the disappearing water exposed them to the air. When he sat up to submerge them in the warm liquid, his shoulders were exposed to the chill. It was quite the dilemma! He could not imagine what the problem was. While no one would ever call Jonathan swift, he should be able to figure this one out. Could it be natural evaporation? Maybe his water loss was just the normal order of things.
But that answer did not seem quite right and even if true did nothing to alleviate the problem. He pondered what to do before hitting on a plan. “I know,” he thought, “I’ll just add more water!” He turned on the tap, and delightfully hot water flowed back into the tub. Soon enough, his knees were nearly submerged and all warm and comfy once more. He shut the tap and dozed a bit.
The chill creeping back into his knees woke Jonathan with a jolt. The water level had dropped back down, and the air was damned cold! He turned the faucet on and filled the tub afresh, minutely adjusting the taps until the flow-in matched the steady flow-out. Perfect! He relaxed again.
But in short order there was another problem as the water pouring in was now cooler than the water in the tub. Even running the hot water tap alone was not doing the trick. He had used up all the hot water in the tank! The whole tub was threatening to turn cold, so he stopped the tap. But that just returned him to his original dilemma with the water once again slowly disappearing. His bath time was ruined! Defeated, he climbed out and grabbed a towel, and only when he went to pull the stopper did he notice that it was not quite sealed. He must have bumped it when he got in. No wonder he kept losing water! Well now, with no hot water available, it was too late for a good soak! He watched disappointed as the last of his bath spiraled down the drain.
Jonathan’s fecklessness in the face of his dilemma may seem silly or even unlikely. How can anyone be so foolish as to not just check the drain plug? Yet, his attempts at problem-solving are no different from the many bosses who do the same when their workers start leaving. Instead of trying to figure out why, they just turn up the tap to replace lost workers with new ones. That will work for a time, but eventually the quality of the new hires will be compromised. Instead of hot candidates, the boss will have to settle for warm and then finally cold candidates, which will inevitably cool the whole workforce. These bosses, plentiful though they be, are not so swift themselves.
Of course, individual employees may have personal reasons for leaving, such as illness, family needs, retirement, better opportunities, and so on. But when it comes to persistent and wide-spread worker outflow, the causes are usually more chronic. If bosses beset with high turnover bothered to investigate why workers were leaving to begin with, they might find a ready solution to plug the drain. But their discoveries along the way may be disconcerting. You have likely heard statistics that show most workers move on not because of factors like pay or even overwork but because they want to escape bad bosses and other stressors associated with poor leadership. Another way of looking at it is that workers will tolerate challenging and even difficult conditions so long as they feel valued and inspired by the leadership of their employer.
In contrast, some bosses avoid exploring the real causes of worker drainage and simply offer incentives for staying. They raise pay, inflate titles, and lavish an array of perks. These inducements may staunch the outflow of personnel to some extent, but they are no substitute for a proper drain plug. In the end, all you get are a bunch of well-compensated but still-miserable and frigid employees.
Many bad bosses also rail against the people who are pouring out, blaming them, which is also foolish since pointing fingers does little to solve problems.
Sometimes they try to block the drain of workers altogether by creating disincentives to leaving. These may include demanding exorbitant time periods for giving notice or even threatening to withhold references. The crudest and cruelest among them use gratuitous non-compete agreements to lock their people in place.
Sometimes they don’t even start with pay and perks to buy employee loyalty but just go right to such punitive measures. The ignorance, inhumanity, and futility of these efforts is self-evident. Why would they want to entrap their workforce? These bosses are both mean-spirited and simpleminded.
Persistent employee turnover is not cause for half-measures, blame-casting, and denial. Turnover is expensive, damaging, and demoralizing. Replacing workers incurs costs that can be difficult to calculate because they not only include expenditures for recruitment, onboarding, and training but also lowered productivity due to depleted skills development and even lost institutional memory. Furthermore, the ones who don’t leave are sometimes the least effective workers with the fewest prospects. Finally, watching one’s co-workers be replaced over and over is dispiriting for those who remain.
Instead of suffering the effects of a revolving door workforce or wasting time with guilt trips and superficial fixes, an honest leader would get to the bottom of the problem. Their investigation would be dogged, even if that means they are in for a frank self-assessment and thorough reform of their own leadership practices. Trying to incentivize people to stay or blocking them from leaving may work for a while—just like Jonathan’s efforts with with his tub—but these are not the way to plug the drain. Great leaders encourage people to stay by leading, not by deploying gimmicks and tricks or playing the blame game.
Employees are loyal to managers who are truly loyal to them, and true loyalty cannot be bought or forced. In contrast, great leaders inspire their team members to perform and succeed because they want to, not because they have no choice, not even because of remuneration or perks. While there may be other factors at play, more often than not, like so many other workplace woes, the root of chronic turnover is bad bossing. Great leadership is the way to once and for all plug the drain.
How do you assure your team members are content and thriving? What have you done or would you do in the face of high turnover?
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𝙅𝙞𝙢 𝙎𝙖𝙡𝙫𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙞, 𝙋𝙝.𝘿., 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳, 𝘬𝘦𝘺𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘳, 𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘤𝘩, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵. 𝘏𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 30 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘌𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘳, 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘎𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴. 𝘏𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘛𝘪𝘯𝘺 𝘏𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘎𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘜𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦𝘴. 𝘊𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘑𝘪𝘮’𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘴 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴.
A Tale of a Tub: Plugging the People Drain