Archive for September, 2010
Is Management to Blame for Staff Turnover?
I was asked a question on LinkedIn and this is a brief outline of my answer that I thought those in my network might find interesting
For many people there is a direct relationship with management
capability and high staff turnover. In my opinion, however, there also needs to be other
considerations before one always blames team managers.
I will often talk to CEO’s and team managers about their “Poach rate”. This
is a calculation that identifies the increase in the current salary that a competitor company has to pay to lure talent away and is represented as a percentage of the salary. The higher the percentage (around 10-15%) the more money has played a part in a person moving jobs. The manager may have little control over this given that pay scales are decided centrally.
If the Poach rate is less that 6% then the cause of the talent leaving is unlikely more likely to be poor culture, lack of training, lack of career structure or poor management style. In this circumstance the Company is responsible for driving away the staff member and if turnover is high then significant attention needs to be paid to these other factors.
Another aspect to why people leave a job is to consider the individual’s circumstances:
Young talent will look to improve their resume (CV) and will remain in a job for as long as they are learning, working on new projects and that the company continues to deliver value to their resume etc.
As soon as another company is identified as providing greater value then the young talent will
leave.
Talent aged 30 -50 may be seeking to maximise earnings or responsibility and if this is not available within their present position will seek to move. (Team managers often have little impact upon career ladders)
Over 50 talent will often seek to reduce responsibility and the time spent at work (once again the team manager has little impact on this area)
Too often, in my experience, blame is placed on “Salary” as a reason why talent leaves when in fact the real reasons are in the company’s power to prevent. A motivating statistic is that when a talented individual
leaves the RISK that further talent will follow increases by 50%.
More sales job questions
I’ve had so many comments on the first sales job interview film clip that I’ve decided to make another that includes some of the questions I’ve been asked to include. The popularity of the first film probably means that sales is an area that I should explore more in future video clips.
Thanks to Paul, Derek, and Sarah, thanks for supplying the questions:
“Do you enjoy working with people?”
“What is it about sales that you like?”
“How do you manage with different types of buying styles?”
“What’s your approach to selling?
Best wishes and contact me if you want a specific interview question answered.
If you are looking for tips on “Interviewing” visit my YouTube channel at stephenharvarddavis
More Sales Job Interview questions
Interviewer’s mistakes
A number of people in my network have complained that I am forgetting those that tend to interview people as opposed to being interviewed.
They also, correctly say that, unless you are interviewing regularly the skills and techniques are often lost through lack of practice and would I upload some advice on “How to interview”
So here goes
Interviewer’s mistakes
Is There An Employment Revolution?
This is an answer I made to a question on Linkedin today about the failure of leaders to sack under- performing people. I thought it worthwhile also posting my answer onto my blog so that more of my network could read it.
I believer that business is going through a revolution.
In past credit squeezes firms and Governments would shed talent to reduce costs (the UK Government is about to do this again by reducing civil service personnel by up to 25%). The result was that essential knowledge and skills were lost and recovery took longer as a result.
So, this time round, firms have attempted to retain their talent, even those less productive, as leaders hope for a quick upturn. The problem is that the upturn is slow in the west.
Further problems are that with coming food inflation and possible grain shortages, extended insecurity as the credit crunch continues and Government policy that increases tax whilst reduces spending businesses are now being forced to start to look to their staff costs. This means that some of the “good” people will be shed as well as the “bad” and that the trend is to hire part-time employees.
I suspect that the result is that the “business revolution” will generate a significant percentage of the working population having a number of part-time jobs as opposed to a single full time position. (including professional firms such as lawyers, accountants and financiers)
There is security in this position for employees who may be “shed or fired” in that income is not reliant on one employer and totally and immediately lost on redundancy whilst the employer has a capability of expanding and contracting a workforce more easily.
So, in my opinion, it’s not “under-performers being hired or fired” it’s that we may be witnessing a change in the way employment may work in the future.
The question on salary
Another difficult question at the interview is the one on salary.
“What are you expecting as a salary” is difficult because if you pitch your answer too low then that’s what you get and if it’s too high you might lose the job.
This clip looks at what you could say if salary is mentioned by the interviewer.
Also remember that there’s a book on “negotiating for what you want” on the website at www.assimilating-talent.com that includes a section on negotiating for a salary increase.
How to get a job you’ll love
I’ve just had the pleasure of reviewing an advance copy of the book “How To Get a Job You’ll Love” by John Lees and suggest that you buy it when it is published in a few days time.
My review is as follows:
£14.99 Mc Graw Hill ISBN: 978-007712993
