Exercise helps firm a sagging middle, but what is your company doing to strengthen middle managers, the very core of your company’s employee retention strategy?
Middle managers are key to retaining employees – and budget dollars. If your company is bleeding employees, recruitment costs will shoot through the roof, as a high turnover rate leads to endless and costly cycles of searching, interviewing, and training, only to have employees get frustrated and leave.
Employee Engagement and Middle Managers
Institutional knowledge comes from longevity, so when an employee walks out the door, it’s like she’s taking a huge chunk of the business with her. Retention is the ideal way for a company to remain sustainable and grow profits. Keeping your employees engaged keeps them with you, thus producing higher returns on investment due to more efficiency and overall effectiveness. Instead of mimicking the herky-jerky movements of a new driver, the company moves forward smoothly, like a well-oiled machine.
So how do you cultivate middle managers and guide them to a mindset of retention? Keeping them trained, focused, and motivated as the middle man is no longer optional, it’s vital. They’re the ones holding your company together and propelling it toward the future. When your middle managers are valued, seen, and heard, your company’s bottom line will reap the rewards.
But how do you measure middle management’s impact? In your search for raw data, use employee surveys and job performance reviews. You can even perform 360 reviews, where you gather feedback from managers and peers.
Ask questions, such as are middle managers adhering to department and company goals, as well as the company’s mission statement? Do they have a high turnover rate of direct reports? Or are their direct reports scoring promotions left, right, and sideways? Do the middle managers take part in task force gatherings, company gatherings, and exit interviews?
Now that you have all that juicy data, what do you do with it? Compare the heck out of it! Look at it critically and objectively. Make connections where there was previously only empty space. Hold it up to the light and see what shines through. What are the strengths of each individual manager? How do they compare? Which areas need a little work, such as soft skills or hard skills?
Now take a step back and look at your training offerings through the lens of that newly acquired data. Do your training and development programs match up to what the data shows? Are those programs laser-focused on what the data tells you middle managers need help with the most? Do you even have training and development programs? Your answers to these questions are crucial, and can mean the difference between weak middle management and a strong central core for your company.
If you liked this article, and you’re a CHRO, business owner or executive who wants to find out more about how to see results with this in your organization, check out the free resource below.
