Problem involving Managerial Turnover

Managerial Turnover: A Problem?
Employee turnover should be a cause for concern in any organisation. It should be even more worrying if it involves key employees such as managers. The exit of employees from an organisation is often an indicator of considerable shortcomings in how the organisation manages its employees (Truss, Mankin & Kelliher, 2012). It could point to dissatisfaction with working conditions, management style, remuneration, workload, and so forth. HealthCare Launder Care (HCLC) has lost 30 of its 120 unit and site managers in the past one year, translating to a 25% managerial turnover rate (Heneman, Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012). This is without a doubt a disturbing trend that the organisation must urgently address to avoid the potential repercussions. The organisation must investigate the cause of the trend and put in place corrective measures if it is to succeed in the long term.
Managers are critical employees in any organisation. They supervise and oversee the day to day operations of the organisation, and ensure tasks are executed as planned. This is ultimately important for fulfilling the promises an organisation makes to its customers. When an organisation loses managers it loses crucial talent, knowledge, and experience. HCLC should be worried that its site and unit managers are exiting the organisation at such an alarming rate. If this continues or worsens, the organisation may eventually be unable to meet its strategic goals and objectives (Truss, Mankin & Kelliher, 2012).
Indeed, managerial turnover can be costly to an organisation. Generally, retaining employees is cheaper than hiring new employees (Truss, Mankin & Kelliher, 2012). Recruiting new employees is usually costly because the organisation has to commit time and resources in advertising vacancies, screening applications, selecting candidates, and eventually training them. Every time the organisation loses a key employee, a new cycle of recruitment, training, and integration often has to begin. In the long term, this could be devastatingly expensive for the organisation: it could increase the human resource budget, consequently affecting the bottom line and the top line. More importantly, managerial turnover could kill the morale of other employees in the organisation. When subordinates see their managers quitting the organisation, their enthusiasm towards the organisation could start to reduce. Employees at junior levels may also start to have a sense of insecurity or uncertainty, subsequently affecting their commitment to the organisation.
There could also be legal consequences on the organisation as a result of managerial turnover. The managers could be leaving the organisation due to mistreatment by senior leadership. Mistreatment in this case denotes treating or handling employees in a manner that is not consistent with the relevant laws and regulations. If mistreated employees take legal action against the organisation, litigation may be not only time-consuming, but also costly. If the court finds evidence of employee mistreatment in contravention of employment legislation, the ramifications on the organisation could be disastrous. In addition to fines and settlements, the organisation may lose the reputation it has built, which could result in the loss of business.
Whereas turnover can be disadvantageous to an organisation, there could be some benefits. Turnover provides an opportunity for an organisation to lose bad or incompetent employees without necessarily sacking them (Truss, Mankin & Kelliher, 2012). This may save the organisation the hassle of introducing a performance improvement initiative, launching a coaching or training program, or dealing with the damage bad employees may cause. Also, when bad employees voluntary exit the organisation, the organisation is spared from the trouble and complexity associated with termination procedures. Further, voluntary turnover may be beneficial because it provides an opportunity to infuse talent into the organisation.
As at now, however, the cause of managerial turnover at HCLC is not clearly known. While there is a possibility that the turnover may not be related to management, the organisation requires information to understand the underlying cause of the problem. Several things in an organisation could lead to employee turnover: an extremely demanding management style, excessive workload, poor remuneration, unhealthy working conditions, lack of flexibility at the workplace, and lack of involvement in decision making (Truss, Mankin & Kelliher, 2012). Employees can also leave an organisation due to lack of growth opportunities, unmet expectations, unfairness in work assignments and promotions, as well as rude behaviour on the part of supervisors. As an example, the vice president (VP) of operations at the organisation Tyrone Williams usually employs punitive actions – such as terminations and base pay cuts – against managers who do not meet the targets he sets (Heneman, Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012). This could be one of the reasons for managerial turnover at the organisation.
It is imperative for the organisation’s human resource function to collect data about its employee management practices to learn more about managerial turnover. Focus should be particularly on supervisory processes, VP manager relationships, task assignment procedures, communication of feedback, as well as how goals, targets, or expectations are set. The organisation can achieve this by conducting managerial surveys and interviews. As managers are the ones affected, they would be important sources of information about their experiences at the organisation. Data should be collected from not only the present managers, but also those who have left the organisation. After collecting the information, the next step would be to analyse the data to identify issues that managers feel could cause their exit from the organisation. The resultant report would form the basis of a personnel management improvement initiative aimed at increasing managerial retention.


References
Heneman, H.G., Judge, T.A., & Kammeyer-Mueller, J.D. (2012). Staffing Organizations. 7th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Truss, K., Mankin, D., & Kelliher, C. (2012). Strategic human resource management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.