THERE DOESN'T APPEAR TO BE ANY ROOM FOR ADVANCEMENT WITH THE COMPANY
This reason for leaving is really interesting. As I travel and work with various size companies, the one question I am asked most often, other than how do I get more sales is WHERE CAN I FIND SOME GOOD SUPERVISORS? Many then go on to tell me how they are reluctant at times to get more business because they don't have anyone to supervise the new work. Sound like you or someone you know?
Most of the time my answer to the question is, "Yes, in your own organization". They really are there most of the time. We just need to locate them and then give them the training, support and opportunity to succeed.
I can remember in the "olden days" the excitement we all had in our company when we landed a new account that would require a substantial number of great employees. After the celebration and we all came back to earth and reality set in, we faced the issue of where would the leadership come from that would manage that new piece of business. (I also remember, several years ago, not being able to produce a qualified supervisor that my prospect wanted to meet that would be managing his 500,000 sq. ft. facility. I didn't get the account).
Our next step was to make the rounds and talk with each of our current project supervisors and ask them if they had anyone working with them that could fill the role. Know the answer? "WE DON'T HAVE ONE PERSON THAT CAN DO IT.You know the kind of people they send me from the office". So we started trying to steal people from our competitors who also didn't have qualified management people. They were trying to steal ours. Why is it the supervisor you hire away from the competitor is always "more qualified" than your own supervisor? If that is true, what does it say about your training program?
After a while I began to realize what was really happening. Our supervisors told us they didn't have anyone worth promoting because if they let them go to another location, they would have to start all over training someone in that position which only increased the supervisor's workload until they got someone new trained the way they wanted them trained.
That is when we began digging deeper into our organization for people to attend our quarterly management training meetings. In this way, I became more knowledgeagle as to who was in the ranks ready for promotion when the situation presented itself.
This reason of no opportunity for advancement of why people leave companies is actually pretty easy to remedy but it requires top management's involvement every step of the way.
One of the keys is to hold, without fail, a quarterly management meeting that has a formal agenda involving your supervisors to help train. You get to see how they are doing but just as important you get to observe their second or third in command. You invite them automatically without asking the project supervisor. If their second or third in command is not qualified, you'll pick up on it in the training. If you are interested in how we conducted these meetings, what our agenda was, what day we held them etc., just go to my web site at www.consultantsincleaning.com and click on the ASK DICK OLLEK icon and ask your question(s).
We found a considerable number of qualified supervisors by using this method. Not only that, I got to meet some really great people even if they weren't supervisor material.
So, let me suggest that you remain diligent at all times in the search within your own company for those GREAT SUPERVISOR candidates that are just waiting to be discovered. You have some real gems in your organization. You just may not know it yet.
Till next time.
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