Top Management Story

Writen by Amir Shahzad

I being employer believe that our real assets/customers are our employees. It means, if our employees are satisfied they will automatically be loyal to the company, which ultimately leads to growth and development of the company.

Meeting the demands of today's changing environment requires building and retaining satisfied, loyal, and motivated staff. In this competitive work environment, workers are no longer inclined to stay at one position or in one company for the entire duration of their career. The most talented professionals are more likely to be hunted by other organizations, especially by competitors, and previous company is left with tears of turn over costs, which include recruitment, rehiring, and orientation/training cost and the turnover effect on the targets is another big issue. With the turnover ratio of 15% in higher management and 10% in middle and lower management, company can't make succession planning because success does not depend only on financial and material resources but on satisfied and loyal employees and good leaders.

The manager whose mood swings, determine the climate of the office on any given workday. Poor interpersonal skills, unfortunate office practices, some managers by sheer shameful force of their personalities make working for the employees rotten. So we can call them toxic managers. Apparently, their results may look fine but behind the screens, none is OK even if you loose one from your workforce. It is unhealthy, unhappy, and unproductive, and it will eventually undo HR's efforts to create a healthy, happy, and progressive work place.

Here the question arises that why managers are remembered as toxic. The main reason is that companies don't rate the managers outside the productivity and business performance. The reasons are culture and the background.

Another cause for high turnover rate of any company is unsatisfactory compensation and benefits plans e.g. Base pay, performance based pay, equity based compensation and bonuses, benefits packages and different allowances and facilities like conveyance, medical, house rent etc, also the lawful benefits like gratuity and provident funds, which varies across countries. This plan of C&B depends on the HR of the company as much as the HR is strong, it will make and implement good policies.

Putting aside some specialized industries, I believe that there is no labor shortage in this country, if in case there is any that is of unemployed people; however, there are millions of qualified people in labor market. Hiring the people from open market is not a big issue but hiring and retaining competent work force is the biggest concern. Now the question arises, how to retain them? How to reduce the turnover costs? What policies make the employees happy and satisfied?

The key to retain employees is that one must start before the first day of the job, when a worker looks for a place to hang a jacket, or refrigerator to keep his lunch fresh. As the first impression is the last impression. This is the work environment a good worker look into.

Company should identify the bad apples (toxic managers and workers who are responsible for dissatisfaction of other employees). HR should take care of these bad apples and should recreate these into detox. Because we do not need dictators, we need good leaders, who could inspire the employees and can motivate the staff even under the hard circumstance and work conditions. We need managers who could manage things instead of complaining and de motivating the staff so by finding good leaders and managers; we can prevent future problems, which can also reduce turnover ratio.

If you cannot offer with good salaries than at least keep your compensation packages competitive to the market. If, comparatively you are paying a little lesser, compensate them by other sources, as money is not every thing for every body, may be some employees are interested in big increments and salaries, but for most, it has no attraction. The good working conditions, environment, good communication, leader subordinate relationship, caring management, employee relationship and career development through training and development and career management plan, all are very important factors to motivate and retain employees.

The awareness also plays an important role in employee's management. First of all employees should be well aware of the goals, which are given to them and of course regarding rewards and benefits expected after completion. They should have a vision and a mission before them. All managers should be communicated about the turnover cost on priority bases. Managers should also be held accountable for employee's turnover and the cost involved. These costs should be a part of every department's profit and loss statement, and should be made integral aspect of each department's budget. Today employee retention is a big issue, and can only be handled successfully by team effort along with a strong communication network, and feed back mechanism.

Aamir Shahzad, Human Resources Specialist and consultant from Pakistan.e-mail: aamirhrd@yahoo.com, cell.# +92 300 5229192