EMPLOYEE TURNOVER: WHO'S AT FAULT?
by
Charles Warner
Many radio and television stations are plagued by employee
turnover. What is the root cause of the problem--is it endemic
to the business, especially in smaller markets, or is it a
management problem?
In their highly readable book, Creating Excellence: Managing
Corporate Culture, Strategy, and Change in the New Age, Hickman &
Silva (1984) write that turnover in personnel and deteriorating
productivity are sure signs of organizational and executive
insensitivity. Thus, they claim that turnover is a management
problem.
Anthony Hoffman ("The high price," 1985), recognized as one
of Wall Street's leading analysts of broadcasting, cable and
entertainment stocks, said "The broadcasting business, generally
speaking, has attracted people of mediocre management talent" (p.
35). The rash of highly leveraged transactions in the late
1980s, growing indecency fines, and articles about unethical
programming and promotion strategies have done little to suggest
that Hoffman's assessment would have changed over the years.
Broadcasting has an image of being, glitzy and semi-sleazy--
an industry that often attracts people more interested in
satisfying their personal needs for power, celebrity and getting
rich quick than in satisfying a business's needs of long-term
growth and a good reputation.
Also, the structure of the industry, which consists of many
small entities, often leads to job hopping as managers try to
work themselves up the ladder by moving from city to city on
their way to a major station in a top market. These job hoppers
are too often self-centered people more concerned with their own
careers and quick-fix results than in building productive
organizations.
What are some of the techniques that can help managers be
more effectively in order to avoid falling into the self-centered
mode and lessening the chances of employee turnover, or at least
keeping it to a minimum? First, managers in broadcasting must
recognize that the conditions in which they operate have changed
radically in the last several years.
Mills (1985) writes that today's status quo is change, and
that although many managers may think that they are making
necessary changes, they are merely rearranging the deck chairs on
the Titanic. Mills' theme is that a new generation of workers
requires new and radically different management techniques.
For example, he says that if you ask new-age employees what
the characteristics of the best organizations they have worked
with were, the answer would be:
1. The mission was clear; everyone knew what was to be done.
2. People were creative and cooperative.
3. Communication in the group was open.
4. Each (group) member carried his or her part of the work.
Notice the focus on group results and a feeling of team
membership in the above answers.
There are some very telling omissions from this list of what
employees liked: strong leadership, clear lines of authority and
exact directions, according to Mills (1985).
Many managers in radio and television tend to focus on those
three telling omissions. Managers are too often directive and
shout "I'm the boss; do as I say, not as I do." In a number of
cases, managers are authority-oriented and are low in trust. How
many sales staffs have to fill out daily call reports indicating
where they have been? How many stations still have time clocks?
How many times have you heard a manager say "I can't trust anyone
to do it right; if you want anything done, you have to do it
yourself." At many stations there is bitter conflict, mistrust,
and terrible communication between departments--typically between
sales and news or sales and programming.
The first area for managers to address in trying to cut down
turnover is their recruiting and hiring practices. They should
constantly recruit and look for intelligent, highly motiv-
ated, hard-working, independent people--the best people they can
find. In broadcasting, managers tend to place too much emphasis
on experience and too little emphasis on raw talent and brains.
By placing too much emphasis on experience, radio and television
managers tend to perpetuate other people's mistakes.
Managers should place much more emphasis on training. The
best managers are those who coach their people to become more
productive, not those who merely direct people to do it.
Next, when managers interview people, they often hire the
first warm body that walks through the door just because of the
urgency of filling an open slot. Hiring practices should include:
1. Interviewing applicants at least three times before hiring.
2. Having a preplanned, written guideline of the questions to
ask all candidates for similar jobs (and asking the same
questions in every interview).
3. Taking notes on their responses.
4. Writing brief evaluations after each interview.
5. Having some sort of objective, numerical ranking system for
all candidates.
Deliberate, systemized hiring is one of the best forms of
insurance against turnover.
However, the biggest cause of turnover is management's
insensitivity to employee's personal needs. Managers should
learn the Golden Rule of management--treat employees the way they
themselves would like to be treated. Unfortunately, too many
managers automatically, unconsciously adopt the style of their
previous or current managers without stopping to think, "Am I
treating my people the way I would like to be treated?"
Hickman & Silva (1984) list five blocks to sensitive
management on the part of managers:
1. Assuming they know other's expectations and needs without
discussing them.
2. Treating all employees the same regardless of individual
differences.
3. Viewing employees as tools or production units, not as
people.
4. Seeing employees as they once were and not recognizing
changes or improvements.
5. Believing employees should respond the way the managers
would respond in the same situation.
To overcome these sensitivity blocks, Hickman & Silva (1984)
recommend the following:
1. Sensitivity to people's security expectations and needs.
Managers should dedicate themselves to their people's
physical well-being, environment, working conditions,
compensation, supervision, and benefits. Managers should
fight for the best of all of these for their people.
Managers should conduct a station attitude survey to find
out how employees feel about their work environment, or have
them go to lunch and gripe anonymously to an employee they
select and trust and who brings back to management their
comments and criticisms. Outside consultants can also
perform this task quite well--employees often open up to
outsiders.
2. Sensitivity to people's belonging expectations and needs.
Managers should involve themselves in scrutinizing the
social interaction, group dynamics, team feeling, participa-
tion in decision making, and sense of family their people
experience. Managers should create an atmosphere of mutual
trust and respect.
3. Sensitivity to people's recognition expectations and needs.
Managers should evaluate thoroughly how and when their
employees win formal and informal recognition via oral and
written praise, promotions, bonuses, awards, honors, and
other means. In radio and television the need for recognition
is especially strong, and every station should have a
formal system for praise and recognition--a little bit of
recognition goes a long way. Managers must find creative,
new ways to give people recognition.
4. Sensitivity to people's quality-of-work expectations and
needs. Managers should define the sort of work people find
interesting, challenging, and inspiring and find ways to
match people with the tasks that are most satisfying to
them. For example, job sharing can get people involved in
areas that interest them.
5. Sensitivity to people's self-actualization expectations and
needs. Managers should know their people well enough to
know what their dreams are. New age managers understand
their employees' dreams and show them how to achieve them
through performance on the job. Remember, most people dream
of winning, so great managers make everyone feel like a
winner. If people are treated like they are losers, they
will fulfill that expectation.
Employee turnover can be cut down in most stations
dramatically simply by better, caring, understanding management.
If a station has high turnover, the general manager and
department heads should look in the mirror for the source of the
problem.
REFERENCES
Hickman, C.R. & Silva, M.A. (1984). Creating excellence: Managing
corporate culture, strategy and change in the new age. New
American Library. New York.
The high price of leverage. (1985, June 3). Broadcasting, pp. 35-
45.
Mills, D.Q. (1985). The new competitors. John Wiley & Sons. New
York.
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