Turnover is Not a ProblemLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Turnover is Not a Problem article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand and appreciate the challenges that turnover creates. Turnover causes a drop in productivity, lower profits, inconsistent quality, and certainly creates work overload. In addition, turnover results in a lack of motivation, a lack of enthusiasm, apathy, and a lack of teamwork. But here’s the question… Are the challenges I just raised problems or symptoms? In the context of our discussion of turnover, most people would agree that they’re all symptoms of our turnover challenge. Turnover caused each of these shortfalls, which leads us to the core question: Is turnover a problem or a symptom? Turnover is a symptom. But what is turnover a symptom of? You may argue that turnover is a symptom of a weak workforce – unmotivated people, apathetic, too small of a labor pool, etc. I believe, however, that turnover is caused by other factors. Turnover is related to leadership. Turnover is a symptom of leadership problems. Some of these leadership-related problems are: lack of purpose, lack of integrity, absence of a plan for developing people, poor communications, and treating people as objects instead of people. Let’s discuss whether these factors really do cause turnover. I always suggest that clients use their own experience as their best example. Have you ever worked for a company just to earn a living? A job where you really didn’t care about the work or the company? I’d guess that virtually everyone has been in that situation at one time or another. You may even be in that situation right now. When you were in that job, were you on the lookout for a better opportunity? Did you leave the company to take a job just to make more money? (… and then repeat the whole scenario once more?) When a company and a job lack purpose, turnover occurs. Have you ever worked for someone who lacked integrity? Someone who would say one thing and do another? Someone who promised to do something but never did? Someone who took the credit and placed the blame? Unfortunately, I’d have to guess that each of us has had that kind of boss at one time or another. When you were in that situation, did you continue to do your work? Of course you did. Was your work accurate and correct? Of course it was. Did you take the initiative on new projects for the benefit of the company? Maybe not. Go the extra mile to make a difference? Hmmm… Did you leave the company at the first opportunity? Point made. When an individual or company lacks integrity, turnover occurs. Ever work in a company where the prospects of advancement or expansion of responsibilities were nonexistent? Someplace where you knew that you weren’t going anywhere? Stay very long? That’s my point. Without an opportunity for growth, learning, expansion of responsibility, and increase in personal value, people leave. When people aren’t developed, turnover takes place. Have you ever worked in a company where major changes were “sprung” on you like a surprise attack? Where work was assigned to you and after you completed it, you found out you had done the wrong thing? What happens when people don’t communicate effectively? Poor communication leads to misunderstandings, conflict, de-motivation, and stress. What do misunderstanding, conflict, de-motivation and stress lead to? You got it – turnover. And then comes the most insidious issue of them all - treating people as objects rather than people. The truth is that from time to time we all fall into this trap to one degree or another. I’m talking about how we regard people. Again, use your own experience as your best example. Have you ever had someone say something kind or positive to you, but you sensed that they were being “phony”? They used the right words, but you could tell their words were insincere? Did you believe the words or your sense of the person? No questions about it – we believe our sense of things and people. When we are faced with someone who says one thing but means another, does our respect for that person increase, decrease or stay the same? Clearly it decreases. Not only do we rely on our sense of the person – our intuition – but we form opinions about them based on our insights. Have you ever worked for someone who you lost respect for? Did you stay at that job very long? When people treat other people as objects, turnover occurs. Purpose, integrity, developing people, effective communications, and regarding people as people are all leadership issues. Exceptional leadership inspires the best effort in others, and when people give their best effort, the result is a high performance organization. When you and your organization have a clearly defined Purpose, you attract and retain the talent you need. When you and your organization have integrity, you build trust and loyalty. When you and your organization are committed to developing people, people become the best they can be. When you and your organization communicate effectively, conflict and tension diminish and cooperation increases. When you and your organization work to treat people as people, they appreciate it and reciprocate. Turnover isn’t a problem - it’s a symptom caused by leadership problems. Fortunately, the problems can be solved, and you have the power to make that difference. Strive to become the best leader you can be.
This is a guest blog post written by Dave Kawula, a Senior Consultant with 1E. Dave was the guest on our January episode of the AlignIT Manager Tech Talk where we talked about how IT managers can take the risk out of their Windows 7 deployment projects. Here Dave outlines a key strategy to employ at the very beginning of your project and some of the tools that you can use.
As the clock keeps ticking towards end of support for Windows XP we need to find ways to accelerate our Windows 7 Migrations. Just because you accelerate your Windows 7 Migration you don’t have to increase your budget. In fact what if you could do the opposite…accelerate the project and reduce cost. Wait a minute – this is an IT Project. The words “reduce costs” don’t really exist in a typical IT Project. Well maybe they can… Most Windows 7 Projects I have seen project over 80% of the costs for that project on Application Packaging and Remediation. What if there was a way to have an organization quickly rationalize their deployed applications. What if there was a way to remove unused software from a desktop prior to the migration. I can sum it up in one word: “Rationalization”.Well there are a couple of tools out there that can help us out with this. One is the Application Compatibility Toolkit “ACT” from Microsoft. It is a great tool that allows us to gain insight into our organization. This unfortunately requires an agent to be deployed on the workstations and requires us to scan them to see what is installed. Then pull the information back to a central database and try to analyze what is deployed. The second tool is one that many of you will already own and have probably deployed. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager has a software metering component that will allow us to use simply scan the machines using the Configuration Manager agent. One problem this requires a lot of configuration and won’t automatically pull back unused software to keep licensing in check. The third tool is one from 1E Software call AppClarity. You can checkout a link to this product here: 1E AppClarity I have personally seen AppClarity give money back to an organization in less than 60 Days after the acquisition of their software. Think about it…why waste money getting shelfware or unused software ready for your brand new Windows 7 Desktops. Once again “Rationalize” not only the amount of software that needs to be migrated to the new platform but also the amount of work. Checkout the screenshot below of this software package. It has revolutionized the way I approach Windows Migrations.
So in my perfect world that I live in I need a tool that will do the following for my Windows 7 Project:
If you can drive cost savings at the start of this project you will be well on your way. Gartner has estimated that it costs on average between $1000.00 to 3000.00 + per desktop to migrate to Windows 7. Most of this cost comes from the work required to migrate unused applications. What if you could get back all that time and save hard dollars by removing shelfware before your projects starts. This makes your project sponsors very happy and allows you to accelerate this project. Deployment costs reduced by 30 % simply by “Rationalizing” the number of applications that need to be ported to Windows 7 and automating the delivery mechanisms for the images. You could easily save over $90,000 in soft costs out of the gate. Reduce the amount of Software Renewals, Support, Deployment, and licensing costs. Once again we “Rationalize” all of our apps. Assume a 50% savings for your organization what does that return? How about an estimated 1 /mil + savings in hard and soft costs. By the way – now that you have a tool that helps rationalize this – think of the savings the next time the licensing police come visit you. I hope you have enjoyed this post and I welcome any feedback or if you want to share your experiences with your Windows 7 projects thus far. About Dave Kawula
Email | Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 |
More Articles:1. Year 2010: Permanent Employees No Longer Required By Burak Fenercioglu Jack Welch joined a conference that was held in Duke Fuquay Business School where he was invited to promote his new book called “Winning”. He told audience about how culture is important in a company. Culture builds integration and integration guarantees better products and services for customers. In GE’s 1994 annual report his statements were no different. “Boundaryless behavior…” he said “…has become the right behavior at GE, and aligned with this behavior is a rewards system that recognizes… 2. Strategic Organizational Learning By Michael Beitler The cost of training in North American companies exceeds $60 billion per year. Try to visualize that. Picture a stack of 1,000,000 $1 bills. Now try to picture 60,000 of those stacks. Amazed? Then consider this fact: estimates of training costs worldwide approach a quarter of a trillion dollars ($250,000,000,000) when indirect costs and opportunity costs are included. Do you find those numbers as difficult to comprehend as I do?Understandably, senior executives are concerned about the ROI (ret… 3. Work Life a Balancing Act By Thomas Murrell Australians are loosing their laidback, carefree reputation, as we continue to work longer hours, exercise less and neglect our leisure and family time.Recent research indicates that 67 per cent of Australian professionals spend at least 20 hours a week thinking about their job when they should be relaxing, and less than half take their entitled annual leave.Why is juggling work and life priorities an increasingly difficult challenge for many people?Could it be we are trying to pack more and m… 4. Behavioral Extensions and Its Implications at Workplaces By Ray Titus The study of Behavioral extension involves investigating the source of an actual demonstrated behavioral action. According to Behavioral Extension belief, no action can be seen as a disconnected expression. Every action is a result of deep set embedded Behavioral sets that are almost unalterable. The unalterable Behavioral set is a result of rooted beliefs and/or prejudices built and integrated into the psyche as a part of growing up. This Psyche ends up dictating the very personality of a per… |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dave Kawula is an MCSE and CNE with over fifteen years of experience in the IT industry and a senior consultant with IE. His background includes data communications networks within multi-server LAN/WAN environments. He has experience with project management, network strategic planning, network design and integration. He has led the architecture for NT, SMS/SCCM, Exchange and Internet Gateways, including managing migration paths and issues as well as implementation. He has supported a variety of network infrastructures as well as architecting and defining technical standards.