Look, you have a vast level and variety of responsibilities as a leader, as an organization. Let’s just talk about one of them today. Reducing employee turnover – retaining your top talent. There is actually one single predictor, it is 10 times more powerful than any other marker when it comes to reducing employee turnover, and it is toxic culture. Toxic culture is 10 times of a greater predictor compared to anything else.
We have been sharing for years that culture lives at the team level, and research has proven that that is true. Of the respondents who said, yes, toxic culture, I’m looking or I’m out of here, they have found that 41% of them blamed their direct manager and 44% are calling out overall leadership. It is the manager, the leader. It is living at the team level, how the culture feels to individuals on a daily basis in the workplace.
It is not necessarily the overall culture of the organization – it lives at the team, and that team is led by that leader. Of those who said, it is toxic culture that is causing me to actively look or leave, the number one solution or recommendation that they gave was to train the leaders.
Train the leaders. It is this simple.
This should be an urgent call to action by all leaders, by organizations, that you need to swiftly get rid of bad leaders and then train those leaders. Even if they are good leaders, they need that training to up level; to meet the needs, to create a positive culture, to retain your top talent, and reduce that turnover. This is such a simple solution. While there are so many other things that we are focused on, if we can get down to training those leaders, those direct managers, to just create this healthy culture, imagine what kind of productivity, what kind of results can happen by having that right team in place.
So today I challenge you, if you are a leader, what can you do to increase and up level your ability to create a positive culture? What kind of training can you actively participate in or request? And if you’re an organization or a senior leader, what are you doing to swiftly get rid of those bad managers and really support, to up level your current managers? Let’s create a healthy workplace, retain those top people, and overall reduce your employee turnover!