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Linked – Managers Should Encourage Employee Development

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

I’ll be honest. This is a challenge. In my professional world, we do measure retention. We measure the number of people who we would want to stay but leave anyway as a net negative. Of course, it is a net negative, but it’s not necessarily because their manager did a poor job keeping them.

“The point being that managers should not hoard talent. They should create a situation where employees work hard, develop their skills, and move into new positions. Whether those positions are inside or outside the company. Having an employee leave for an exciting opportunity isn’t a poor reflection on the manager. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. “

The article below mentions something we’ve all seen way too many times. The manager who gets promoted, but never developed any of their reports to do their job, and winds up having to continue doing it. In the worst-case scenario, since the culture was not to develop people to replace you, that person is probably also learning the new role from scratch while still doing a large chunk of their old role.

What a waste of time and talent.

The answer, as the classic Richard Branson quote mentions, is to realize how much net-negative is created when you have employees who don’t grow. Then not only develop them but allow them a space to grow. If your team will always be 5-7 people and you want to always lead it, expect to have to replace all of them over and over again. Not because they don’t like you, or don’t like the work. Because you didn’t provide space for them to grow.

Very few people want to do the same job for 30-40 years. It’s not interesting or sustainable in a world that is constantly changing as ours. Your business doesn’t really want those people anyway. They aren’t going to help you be successful.

The ones who will are the ones who are learning and developing constantly. Could you give them the space to do that?

https://www.hrbartender.com/2023/leadership-and-management/managers-encourage-development/

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