Burning The Dead Wood

Burn the Dead Wood

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Anyone remember the “Great Resignation?” It wasn’t that long ago that workers were leaving their jobs in record numbers. Today, companies are complaining that they can’t get people to leave!

According to the Wall Street Journal, the new headache for bosses is that employees aren’t quitting, because the job market has become more competitive.

Here’s my advice for those who are worried about this latest trend.

Get out your matches. It’s time to burn the dead wood!

Let’s start with leaders who aren’t managing. These leaders know they have employees who should have been gone a long time ago, yet they’re still there. Case in point. Recently, a client reached out to me for advice on how to fire an employee. When asked when he realized this employee should have been let go, he said, “Fifteen years ago.”

You may think this situation is a one-off. It’s not. A recent Gartner HR Survey revealed that less than half of employees are performing optimally, which indicates to me that managers are not managing performance. Many managers aren’t sharing their expectations with their employees, nor are they holding people accountable. Managers, who aren’t willing to manage, shouldn’t be permitted to stay in the organization, which is why I’m suggesting you begin by looking at your management team.

Next, cull your non-performers immediately. You’re not doing them any favors by keeping them. According to management firm McKinsey’s State of the Organizations Survey, the highest performers in a role are 800% more productive than average performers in the same role. Now if that statistic doesn’t convince you to burn the dead wood that’s in your organization, I don’t know what will.

Another reason leaders keep so much dead wood around is because HR practices make it so onerous to let someone go, that a leader would rather step on a bed of nails, then try and transition someone out of the organization. Instead of making the process of removing people from the organization so labor intensive, HR should partner with managers to help them come to a mutual understanding with these employees.

By that I mean, having one of those tough conversations I write about in my book, Can We Talk: Seven Principles for Managing Difficult Conversations at Work, where a manager provides honest feedback and asks the employee if they’d prefer to resign, rather than go on a performance improvement plan. In exchange for their resignation, the employee is given a generous separation package that may include an agreement not to contest their unemployment insurance.

This latest trend of lower attrition won’t last forever. Soon, there will be another problem that you’ll need to worry about—the predicted labor shortage resulting from the shift in demographics. But I digress.