“Culture eats Strategy for breakfast” – Peter Drucker
We have all heard the famous quote by Peter Drucker - absolutely true. However if you have high turnover then you will find it hard to have a discernable culture. The people are simply turning over too fast. You might have aspirations of a culture, or even a culture within those departments whose turnover is less than the organization as a whole.
Over the last few decades, culture has become a center point for organizational improvement. But many companies are struggling to see the benefits of the culture they are trying to build. Their culture never seems to attain what the organization desires.
The main reason I have found when talking to managers is that they are trying to build an amazing culture while having high turnover. They truly believe “when the culture is built” it will somehow solve the employee turnover problem. But, I have never seen it happen.
Here is why……
- The root causes of your turnover are a cancer on your culture.
- A great culture cannot exist alongside high turnover.
- The advantages of a great culture are destroyed by high turnover.
- High turnover will always win the fight over a great culture.
Every time I walked into a new job as the VP of HR or as a consultant - I always walked into a high turnover problem. Alongside it was low morale, an inconsistent “culture” and a ton of outward negativity – all of which are symptoms. In each case, we determined the true root causes of our turnover and made a lot of changes we did regarding the root causes had a major impact on developing the new culture. Lines were drawn, acceptable and unacceptable behavior was agreed on. Who we wanted and who we did not want “on the bus” also allowed us to truly understand what our culture should be going forward. Inherently, we were getting feedback from the employees.
The consistent results were:
- Solving the employee turnover problem jump starts your culture.
- Eliminating the root causes of your turnover will promote and define your culture.
- The advantages of a great culture will blossom.
Are you spending a lot of time, effort and money on trying to make it better and seeing little progress? Are you wondering if the root causes you see are the true root causes? Are you not sure what needs to be done – to get the results you want?
Would you like some help from someone who has been there many times and gotten concrete results?
