You may have the best benefits package, free lunch once per week and an office that provides enough sunshine and outdoor views for everyone and yet employees might still be inclined to leave.
That’s because one of the biggest drivers in employees leaving a company is broken processes. If employees are regularly and repeatedly frustrated at something within your organization, they will look for another place where things run smoother.
Lucid Research conducted a study in July 2017 that queried 1,000 full-time employees who worked in organizations with 1,000 or more employees. Their survey found that one-third of the employees questioned were looking for jobs elsewhere. Of the people looking for a new position, 86 percent of them cited broken processes as their primary reason for leaving.
The four most common processes that employees deemed to be broken in their respective organizations were:
- Troubleshooting of technology
- Accessing tools and documents necessary for job performance
- Receiving annual performance reviews
- Promoting within the organization
For leaders of small and large businesses alike, this is an eye opening study about what processes to watch closely in your organization.
1. Tech Troubleshooting
When your organization’s technology breaks down and stops working, it causes havoc for your employees. We’ve all had experiences where our computers and other tech at home frustrates us, but imagine how much more frustrating it would be if your job depended on that technology.
The Lucid Research survey found that 62 percent of respondents said technology troubleshooting was a broken process within their organizations. For businesses with in-house IT teams, 24 percent of respondents said tech problems were fixed promptly, but for businesses with third-party tech teams, a mere seven percent said their technology related issues were handled promptly.
It’s not just employee frustration that increases when technology problems pop up. Security risks also increase. Poor technology performance routinely leads to employees using unsanctioned apps and devices as a workaround, putting an organization’s security at risk, the survey found.
Solution
The more your company relies on a technology, the more you have to prioritize spending for that technology, even if it means foregoing items in other areas. Keep your equipment and software up to date, make sure people are trained adequately to use it and make sure you have a good IT team -- either in-house or contracted -- to help resolve issues quickly and efficiently.
It’s also a good idea to educate your employees on the dangers of using unapproved apps and devices for business, but the best way to prevent them from doing this is to make it so they are not tempted to.
2. Difficulty Accessing the Necessary Tools and Documents
Trying to do a job without having access to the right tools or documents is annoying and can cause employees to look elsewhere for work. They might think you are not willing to spend the money to get them the right tools or they might feel as if their job is being made more difficult by having their efforts to do their job hampered.
Solution
It could be that you or your managers are unaware of the trouble your employees are having accessing the necessary tools and documents to do their jobs. Gathering feedback from employees about how difficult or easy it is to perform their duties and if they have access to everything they need is crucial to making sure they are satisfied with their job. If they are having issues performing their duties because of lack of access to tools and/or documents, consider what you can do to help with this.
3. Annual Performance Reviews that Offer No Constructive Feedback
A review of employee performance should point out what they did well and what they did poorly, but it should also tell them how they can improve their performance and this is where some businesses falter. If you’re not giving any direction as to how an employee can improve, you’re leaving it up to them to figure it out by trial and error.
Solution
The most obvious solution is to make sure anyone who is giving a performance review knows they are supposed to offer input into how an employee can improve. To make sure this is being done, the performance reviews -- and those performing them -- should be reviewed themselves. If it’s the review process itself that is broken, that is what you have to fix. It’s also a good idea to give the employees a chance to anonymously review their supervisors and managers because those reviews are just as (if not more) valuable than ones going from the top down.
4. Career Advancement that Goes Nowhere
A job that you cannot advance your career in is a job that is not worth having for a lot of employees. According to the Lucid Research survey, 67 percent of employees saw their careers being stagnated by broken processes at their jobs, with 57 percent citing defective processes like determining who gets promoted within their organizations as being detrimental to their careers. Organizations failing to have a clearly defined path for advancement has led to 63 percent of employees to look for a position with a new organization.
This isn’t always the fault of the company. If your business has excellent corporate culture and little turnover, there might just not be anywhere for people to advance. However, if your company is growing, there should be a clearly defined path for people to go from Position A to Position B to Position C as they work in your business.
Solution
Not everyone is going to be able to advance their careers as much as they’d like to in your organization, so it is important to be honest during the hiring process about where potential ceilings are in your organization. It’s better to be honest with candidates than risk them becoming disgruntled later when they realize they’ve advanced as much as they can. Obviously this means losing some employees that you would rather keep, but it’s better to see them leave on good terms than stay under bad terms.
For scaling up and expanding, you should have clear paths and criteria to promotion, whether you go with length of tenure or demonstrated ability. Try to make it as clear as possible for everyone so they know exactly what is required of them for advancement.
The best way to avoid broken processes in your organization is prevention. As your business grows and expands, take into consideration the technology you will need, the tools and documents employees will require, the effectiveness of your review system and clear path to career advancement.
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