How good are your people-skills? How do you know?

Manchester Metropolitan University - Employee Retention Research
Human Resources Management and Organisation Development Behaviour

A Research Programme Led by Stephen Taylor, Senior Lecturer
An Overview
(Reprinted with Permission)

A programme of research has been carried out by a team of research students led by Stephen Taylor looking at the major reasons people have for leaving their jobs.

This is an on-going project. The first results have been disseminated in academic papers and also in a guide for managers called 'The Employee Retention Handbook' which has been published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). The book is available from their website, www.CIPD.co.uk

Our research breaks new ground in that it involves carrying out in depth interviews with people in different professional groups about their last job moves. All our interviewees have switched jobs within the past year and are asked to explain to us, in their own words, why exactly they left.

We have now conducted a total of 200 interviews with people in the following groups:

• Accountants / Solicitors
• Retail workers
• Automotive engineers
• Call centre staff
• Managers in fashion retailing
• Police officers
• IT staff
• Nurses
• new graduates

We have found some significant differences between the reasons for leaving among these different professional groups, but also a number of general factors that have significance for all of them.

The major finding is that poor quality line management is the most significant general cause of employee turnover. With the exception of the engineers for whom other factors were more important, poor supervision was the most important single factor.

We were given dozens of examples of incidents which led directly or indirectly to resignations, all of which involved supervisors mismanaging situations or making quite basic mistakes.

In some cases it is some form of bullying, rudeness, lack of respect or abuse of power. In others it was a failure to manage (sweeping problems under the carpet, avoiding making decisions, refusing to listen to employee grievances, failing to give feedback, failing to show any appreciation for a job well done etc). A third type of common situation was perceived favouritism - failing to treat everyone in a team the same way.

There appears to be a particular problem when people are promoted to supervisory roles at a young age. They seem to be given very little training for these roles by organisations and do not yet have sufficient experience of working life to carry them out effectively.

We believe that in most of these cases these resignations occurred without the organisation being aware of the real reasons. People who leave because they have received poor supervision tend not to tell their employers that this is why they are leaving. They believe that doing so might jeopardise the receipt of good references in the future or will result in the burning of bridges with colleagues who they often like personally. So they cite some other less contentious reason for leaving instead such as pay rates, time for a change or personal reasons.

The second major finding of the research is the relative unimportance of pay issues in explaining voluntary resignations. We found only a small handful of examples of people stating that they left a job (either in whole or in part) in order to secure a higher rate of pay. We found twice as many examples of people leaving jobs they disliked and taking up less well-paid employment. There are two possible explanations for this (not mutually exclusive):

1. Pay is not as important to most people as being happy in their jobs in a more general sense. Good pay does not compensate for an unenjoyable job or an intolerable manager.
   


2. Organisations manage pay issues effectively in practice, paying people the market rate that they expect to receive for their job.

My view is that UK organisations manage pay issues well because it is pretty easy to do so - you just pay the market rate and make sure that efforts are rewarded. This is not therefore a major cause of employee turnover. Managing interpersonal relationships effectively (especially the supervisor / subordinate relationship) is a great deal harder to achieve.

Other important reasons for leaving are a perceived lack of training and development opportunities and problems associated with juggling career and family priorities. The latter was especially significant in retailing.

Among some professional groups, though by no means all, there is a particular problem of early leaving (ie: people resigning within a year of starting). This suggests that poor selection decisions are being made and that new starters are not going through an effective induction process.

The major conclusion is that UK organisations are losing good people, at considerable cost, for entirely avoidable reasons. Substantially reducing rates of employee turnover could be achieved without the need to spend a great deal of money.

Above all organisations need to pay greater attention to the basics of effective supervision. We would recommend the following:

1. Appoint people to supervisory roles on the basis of an assessment of their people management skills (as opposed to their technical skills).
   


2. Ensure that managers are given proper and full training in the basic principles of effective supervision.
   


3. Formally appraise line managers using supervisory criteria as well as technical and financial achievements. Consider staff turnover records as part of performance appraisals for managers.
   


4. Resist promoting poor people managers to senior jobs - especially those who have a poor record of keeping people for whom they have line management responsibilities.
   


5. Make all managers aware of the costs associated with excessive employee turnover and of their role in reducing it.

Stephen Taylor's book is called 'The Employee Retention Handbook'. It is published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development at £24.99. It is available from their website.

Select and contact a Mentor if you'd like to discuss these ideas or want support to make progress with your own issues.

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