5 Ways To Lose Talented, Quality Employees

It’s not a cliche. Your employees are your most valuable asset.

It’s an old story.

A company is doing great or showing a lot of promise, and then something happens. It might be a change in ownership or management. It might be an economic downturn. It might be a shift in the cultural landscape.

Whatever the reason, a successful company can find itself in ruin in a very short time once they begin losing quality employees. Some businesses manage to tread water, so to speak, by hiring less experienced, cheaper replacements or outsourcing overseas. But those actions rarely keep the company running at its finest.

As a business owner, manager, department head, or supervisor at any level, it’s in the interest of both you and your business to avoid the pitfalls that lead to loss of talent.

Ignoring boundaries

Your employees work to live, they don’t live to work. Outside of work hours, they’ve busy lives full of family and friends that have nothing to do with your company. When the end of the workday comes, most folks don’t want to think about their work until the next day.

Don’t take this personally. This is a reasonable form of mental self-defense from keep from getting burnt out

Understanding that, respect your employees’ off-time. Avoid scheduling meetings or training outside of regular working hours without checking with those employees affected. And pay them for their time.

Do not schedule a mandatory, unpaid event outside of expected working hours. Nothing will build employee resentment quicker than trying to take away their weekend for a work-related event that you’re not even compensating them for.

While training sessions are an ultimate benefit to employees and the company, you can’t take the employees for granted when it comes to their choice of how they spend their free time. This may be their only time to be with family or take care of chores and other affairs.

Life exists outside the company. Respect that.

Whittling down benefits

Benefits are a great way of attracting employees, and maintaining those benefits is absolutely necessary if you want to keep them.

When benefits start disappearing one by one, word gets around fast, and morale plummets.

Employees know that when one benefit gets slashed, such as reducing vacation hours, eliminating personal/health days, and watered-down insurance, it signals one of two things. It might mean the company is not doing well, and it might be time for employees to update their resumes. Or it could mean that the owners are putting profit before employees.

There’s nothing wrong with making a profit. It’s essentially why anyone is in business. However, don’t make the mistake of not taking the long view.

Focusing on the short-term

How many times have you seen a business try to cut corners and invest in low-quality equipment or materials in the name of boosting quarterly P&L? How many times have those same companies continued the practice, then lost customers due to poor performance or product? How many of them went out of business because they put short-term profit ahead of long-term gain?

A few times, I’m sure. Many times, I suspect.

Some businesses treat their employees much the same way as other business resources. They cut corners, hire cheap, fire-and-replace frequently — all in the name of short-term profits.

Word gets around. Customers start to see the effects of these actions on the quality of services or products and the employees’ attitude.

If you want to see a business flourish, think long term. A tighter profit one quarter is made up for later down the line with enduring customers, products, and reputation. Invest in your employees now, and you’ll see that pay off increasingly over the years.

Fostering a culture of mistrust

This is another morale-killer and another signal to employees that not all is well with the company. When employees are out-and-out told to keep secrets from other employees, it automatically feeds into a sense of mistrust and lack of faith. You don’t have to be open about everything, but at the same time, focusing too much on keeping employees from freely communicating sends a poor message.

Another area where mistrust can damage employee relations is not trusting them to be doing their job should they be part of your work-from-home or otherwise remote workforce. Overzealous time tracking, constant checking in, monitoring… all suggest to employees that you don’t trust them.

Mind you, confidentiality and reasonable work oversight are important to maintain, but there should be a respectable level sought that doesn’t send the wrong message. No employee expects to know everything going on in a business. No employee expects to not have their work checked now and then. But when secrecy and surveillance start sending a message of overall mistrust, those employees will look for a better environment to work in.

Not being flexible

The very first point brought up in this article was that your employees have lives outside of work. As such, sometimes real-life issues crop up that may interfere or overlap with working hours. These could include medical appointments or emergencies, family issues including illness and death, or merely the need for a mental health day.

Don’t dismiss these needs. Even if it seems small to you, it’s important to your employee. Believe it or not, if it comes down to an emergency trip to the vet for the family dog and their job, many talented employees will choose the dog.

It’s in your best interest to be as flexible as reasonably possible when dealing with individual employee needs. Don’t set policies that lack any kind of wiggle room or accommodation for special circumstances. And be wary of zero-tolerance policies. That’s just lazy thinking and sends a message to your staff that circumstances don’t matter.

Don’t be that boss.

Your employees are your strength

You can have the most outstanding business plan or product under the sun, but it means nothing if you don’t have quality employees on your side, supporting you, and feeling appreciated for the jobs they do.

This isn’t a question of who has more strength — management or labor. It’s more a question of how strong your business can be when everyone works together. While there is a sliver of truth to the old saying, “No one is irreplaceable,” that doesn’t mean your business will last long if you drive away talented staff in favor of cheaper, less invested, and less capable replacements.

Sure, profit margins may be lower in the short term, but in the long term, you’ll see profit for much longer and at more significant growth potential.

Seize upon that idea, and lift your business up rather than raze it to the ground.

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