Bad leadership costs money. A lot of money. Among other things this is revealed by the new figures of the Gallup Engagement Index 2014. As decision maker or responsible human resource developer you can nevertheless do a lot in order to achieve improvements.
The fact that people are attracted to a company by its (exclusive) brand and leave it because of bad leadership, is a common phenomenon, not only among HR representatives. Unfortunately, not yet wide-spread enough, one might assume considering the demographic change and the almost historic number of job offers in Germany. Decision makers, please wake up - too much bad leadership is simply being tolerated and overlooked (according to the motto: “That’s how he is, what can you do.“). According to the newest Gallup survey (2015, we can forward this study if you like) 42 percent of the emotionally unattached employees have considered leaving the company because of their superior over the past 12 months, 13 percent among those employees with little emotional connection. One fourth of all questioned employees have already taken this step once in their professional life and have quit their job because of their superior, in order to feel better. 39 percent of those without personal connection would immediately dismiss their superior if they could.
Truly not a satisfactory report for executives. As immediate result costs arise that can hardly be argued away: for days of absence due to psychic strain, low engagement, increase in undesirable fluctuation; indirect costs caused by less creativity and ideas for improvement etc., etc. In order to name only one concrete figure: solely due to the amount of absences, for a company with 2.000 employees costs of up to 1,3 million Euros arise (source: ebd). Not imaginable what would happen if one would invest this money sensibly, e.g. in a professional personnel development that acts at eye level with the management and is not merely allowed one leadership training every few years.
So what can you do?
As a decision maker you should take these figures seriously and have a benchmark comparison be made. How do you come off in this comparison? Where are the strengths of your company, where the weaknesses? How many direct and indirect costs arise from this? Compare this with the budgets that you spend on personnel development. In which fields is your personnel development already acting? Are they acting on parts that have a true lever? Is the budget sufficient to build up an effective personnel development or are you saving at the wrong end? Are you working on the long term and strategically-oriented within your personnel development, or are you just following the lastest trend?
As a responsible personnel developer you should also take the figures as a basis. They are perfectly suited for a presentation in front of the management. Try to obtain the respective figures from your company in order to also make a benchmark comparison. Draw comparisons in two directions: on the one hand regarding the values from the study and on the other hand regarding your branch. How high are the absent times? How high is fluctuation within your company? How many suggestions for improvement are being made? How satisfied and engaged are the employees? Then analyze your area of responsibility critically and relentlessly before others do it. Act proactively and engage an external provider in order to obtain independent results and to reflect on your perception. Perform a profitability calculation, if possible, in order to be able to show the benefit (ROI) of your work.
In the end, everybody should profit: the decision makers, because the figures are better and the people healthier, the employees, because they feel better, the personnel developers, because they can add value to their work and the customers, because they are served more friendly.