The Most Common Executive Failing: A Hidden Reason Good Employees Quit

A primary focus—and one of the most difficult tasks—of any executive is hiring and retaining competent and loyal employees.

To cite a study from the Center for American Progress (CAP): “The cost of turnover is an important economic issue because about one-fifth of workers voluntarily leave their job each year and an additional one-sixth are fired or otherwise let go involuntarily.”1

The management technology of L. Ron Hubbard includes extensive knowledge regarding personnel, and he had this to say on this vital subject:

“Personnel and their capacity for work on their exact jobs is the basic key to income and success.”

Fundamental to that statement are the words “their exact jobs,” and violations of this wreak havoc in organizations—elaborated on further in this article.

Depending on the industry, the costs related to employee turnover can be astronomical. They can make or break a small business, and for large corporations the figures multiply exponentially.

For every person that quits or is fired, filling the position requires a wide range of expenses, including, but not limited to, running an effective HR department, advertising, hiring a recruitment firm, lowered productivity and morale, training, internships, unemployment fees, theft, industrial espionage and lawsuits.

The same CAP study found that the cost of turnover for employees earning $75,000 or less was roughly 20 percent of their yearly salary, and for jobs requiring a complex skill set or senior executive positions the costs exceeded 200 percent.

Ask executives and entrepreneurs in any industry for the biggest obstacles in growing and managing a company and you will be given “personnel” at the top of or high on the list.

Why?

Well, the quick answer is that we’re talking about the most important and most volatile component in all of business, and in all of life for that matter—human beings!

The price for not understanding people is tangible, formidable and in some cases fatal.

To understand this subject, one must fully grasp some fundamentals about people and how they view their job. Mr. Hubbard wrote:

“A department head must never begin a practice of yanking people off post2 to do things that aren’t his hat.”3

The number of reasons given by managers and HR people for high employee turnover is as unlimited as the variables in human behavior: The boss was too stern or demanding; insufficient pay; too much overtime; not enough vacation days; lack of benefits; the employee just didn’t like being there. While any of these could be contributive, none are a “why” or a common denominator, and none open the door to a handling.

Must a manager or owner simply demand less of his or her staff? Any executive worthy of the title knows that productivity is paramount, so being “less demanding” isn’t an option. Mr. Hubbard then was very specific on where many executives fall short:

“This is the commonest executive failing. To tear people away from work to do a non-hat4 emergency. The personnel to whom this happens get a shotgun complex about such an executive. It’s the executive who puts confusion into the department. If such emergencies rise, then the executive had a hat missing somewhere. Emergency = that activity that wasn’t planned. A non-planned department is then a total emergency.”

From CEO on down to departmental manager, the failure to have clearly delineated HATS is rampant in business today, and executives wonder why their employees quit. Fortunately for us, L. Ron Hubbard isolated a primary cause for employees quitting their jobs:

“A personnel can cope with anything if it’s his hat. Suddenness doesn’t make an emergency. Misrouting and bad assignment of hats do.

“So don’t grab the janitor and have him file papers and an instructor and have him fill inkwells if you want people to stay around.

“Yanking people off post makes them feel insecure. They get the idea they’re partly fired and they quit, strange as it seems.”

Therein lies an essential point of examination for any executive who has had good employees resign.

Barring extreme circumstances, it’s not that the executive is demanding people work, but he or she may be—on a regular basis—telling people to do things that are not their job. And the executive may be utterly oblivious to this fact. These employees then feel destabilized. They’re not sure what they were hired to do and sooner or later they quit.

Being a competent and successful CEO or manager means acquiring comprehensive knowledge and skill relating to administration and people—the importance of the latter being highly underestimated in business today.

Through decades of experience in founding and running organizations, combined with a keen insight into human behavior, L. Ron Hubbard sought to help managers and employees at all levels and thus create a happier and more prosperous society.

This is needed now more than ever. Do not underestimate the role you play, and that all business plays, in bringing about positive societal change. One way we’ll do it is by understanding people and keeping our teammates on the team.

The world is counting on you.

oOo

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