We have all been there. Our computer or phone makes it clear, it needs a restart. So we save all of our work, close all the windows and do a restart. What happens? Invariably, there is going to be problems. It may take a couple of restarts to get back to normal. In my experience, I almost always lose work. Somehow when I saved the work, it did not save right or the restart rejected the save. Whatever it is, I end up redoing some work. On the other hand I have never had work completed after a restart which I had not already done. At best, I had what I had before.
We are coming up on a time when we will be restarting our people at work. At this point, there are numerous ways this could happen. However, the root causes of your employee turnover will still be there and will probably be worse. The good news is the issues can be addressed at this time. COVID in of itself is not affecting the root causes. However, the quarantine will exaggerate the symptoms when employees return.
Root causes only get worse with time
We had a customer with a large plant which went through an extended period of construction, modifications and deferred maintenance. The plant was off line for months. The plant had serious people problems before going off line. The larger, more complex plant which now existed only made the root causes of their turnover and resulting symptoms worse. This was actually a good thing for our company. They needed even more contractors in the plant covering work responsibilities. The cost of our employees was significantly higher than if they could hire their own. We were not complaining.
Band aids are expensive
It became clear the plant had done little to nothing to deal with the existing root causes. They also were not prepared for the advanced symptoms which began hitting them. Now in the midst of restarting the plant, they were also not hitting their goals of hiring and training people. All of this was avoidable. Some manager was refusing to deal with the real problems which clearly existed. The people results made it clear they had not successfully analyzed how the new complex plant was going to affect their people.
Wouldn’t it be more fun to deal with the problems ahead of time?
