It’s not rocket science

Reducing absenteeism and turnover is not rocket science.

Having worked those issues for a half a century in organizations and having gathered data from 600 organizations, I write confidently about this.

1. Each person must identify with some boss/employee unit. If they are asked, “Who is your boss?”, can they quickly answer, or do they say, “I don’t know” or, “I have many bosses.” If so, they have no sense of belonging to a primary group and no boss who has their back!

2. They must be able to differ with the boss and offer unpopular information while remaining clear that the manager/supervisor is responsible for the decision even where decision-making has been delegated.

3. Managers/supervisors must praise with specificity, not generalities such as, “You’re doing a great job.” Occasionally that’s OK, but only if the employee has heard specifics frequently.

4. Employees not only need to be clear about their job responsibilities, but also their colleagues need to be as clear as possible about others in their unit so they are not being continually asked to do things that are not in their job assignment.

Improving these enabled one fast-food chain to reduce turnover 50%.

A light manufacturing firm saw:

…absenteeism drop 40%,

…industrial accidents drop 21%

In a heavy industry, among eight crews in one department, the crew that scored lowest on “Influence with Supervisor” and “Role Clarity,” had twice the absenteeism as the best scoring crew, and eleven times the safety incidents!

Robert P. Crosby

Spokane