3 ms·

Why aren't managers graded on retention? If you lose too many people you're penalized or fired.

by siculars 10y ago

JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Why aren't managers graded?
hluska 10y ago
Or, grade managers on how far their direct reports advance in the company??
techthroway443 10y ago
Perhaps because it's a poor indicator of performance. There's a lot more factors at play when people quit than just "i hate my boss"
- rco8786 10y ago
  That's a pretty huge factor though. It's definitely something that should be taken into account.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  That's what exit interviews and a healthy culture are for.
el_benhameen 10y ago
In the Susan Fowler case, at least, her manager changed a good review to a poor one to avoid losing her to another team. So I'm not sure that a blanket "if you lose too many people" policy is necessarily a good thing.
lvspiff 10y ago
Because retention can be too subjective. If you lose a lot of bad people then retention is not a bad thing. If you start to lose good people then what was the common reason? Not willing to pay? Company culture? Team culture? Company I work for retention can be factored in but the ability to rate your boss is given each year and if that comes back negative along with poor retention than that is reason for further action.
- jobu 10y ago
  > If you lose a lot of bad people then retention is not a bad thing. Bad people in a company means there's a hiring problem, which ultimately is a management problem. Losing lots of people means the pay is too low or the bullshit is too high, and both of those are management problems as well.
jackhack 10y ago
If only. With some corporate cultures there is little to no value placed on retention. In fact, as crazy as it sounds, employees are seen as a liability. This was especially obvious during the great offshoring wave of the last decade where companies couldn't wait to shed loyal-yet-expensive employees with long work histories with replaceable contract workers on the other side of the world. We all know how well that turned out. Microsoft's (in)famous "rank&yank" comes to mind, where the employees of each department were annually scored for performance and lowest 10% were let go. Unfortunately this was copied by quite a few other companies. In this environment, absolute performance is not enough to keep one's employment, only relative performance among peers. Therefore, it is best to work with knuckleheads, easily outperformed, than with a group of geniuses where a constant struggle will exist. Perhaps it's advantageous for the company (doubtful, as even MSFT abandoned this practice) but it's highly destructive to cultures and individual's careers.

Why aren't managers graded on retention? If you lose too many people you're penalized or fired.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

Why aren't managers graded?

hluska 10y ago

Or, grade managers on how far their direct reports advance in the company??

techthroway443 10y ago

Perhaps because it's a poor indicator of performance. There's a lot more factors at play when people quit than just "i hate my boss"

rco8786 10y ago
That's a pretty huge factor though. It's definitely something that should be taken into account.
throwaway729 10y ago
That's what exit interviews and a healthy culture are for.

el_benhameen 10y ago

In the Susan Fowler case, at least, her manager changed a good review to a poor one to avoid losing her to another team. So I'm not sure that a blanket "if you lose too many people" policy is necessarily a good thing.

lvspiff 10y ago

Because retention can be too subjective. If you lose a lot of bad people then retention is not a bad thing. If you start to lose good people then what was the common reason? Not willing to pay? Company culture? Team culture? Company I work for retention can be factored in but the ability to rate your boss is given each year and if that comes back negative along with poor retention than that is reason for further action.

jobu 10y ago
> If you lose a lot of bad people then retention is not a bad thing. Bad people in a company means there's a hiring problem, which ultimately is a management problem. Losing lots of people means the pay is too low or the bullshit is too high, and both of those are management problems as well.

jackhack 10y ago

If only. With some corporate cultures there is little to no value placed on retention. In fact, as crazy as it sounds, employees are seen as a liability. This was especially obvious during the great offshoring wave of the last decade where companies couldn't wait to shed loyal-yet-expensive employees with long work histories with replaceable contract workers on the other side of the world. We all know how well that turned out. Microsoft's (in)famous "rank&yank" comes to mind, where the employees of each department were annually scored for performance and lowest 10% were let go. Unfortunately this was copied by quite a few other companies. In this environment, absolute performance is not enough to keep one's employment, only relative performance among peers. Therefore, it is best to work with knuckleheads, easily outperformed, than with a group of geniuses where a constant struggle will exist. Perhaps it's advantageous for the company (doubtful, as even MSFT abandoned this practice) but it's highly destructive to cultures and individual's careers.