Turnover, some good ideas

Today I had a very nice discussion with a very old lawyer, and during, we start talking about people leaving companies and how much this has an effect on the organizations itself specially that in his set of mind, people leave companies all the time and still companies are surviving and making more profit every year, I will in this entry write both arguments, I will let you decide :)

The man point of view, turnover means having new blood, young people will have the possibility to advance in their career and receive more responsibilities which will motivate them more, new blood can be introduced into the organization which will allow for new ideas and improved practices, knowledge will be transferred and then enhanced with different prospective.

My point of view, turnover leads to loss in morals (usually), recruiting talents will cost money either for using recruiters, or for the interviewing and hiring expenses, replacement will need time to manager all responsibilities and this is a salary paid that can be saved if turnover did not occur, company needs always to build a team of loyal employees which has the culture embedded within them, new blood will need time to fit into the new culture and they might never fit in, finally, knowledge history cannot be transferred ever, people doing the work learn a history (learning curve) that can never be transferred to any replacement. basically, companies might not be losing money in the books, yet definitely it is losing efficiency which is a potential revenue (opportunity cost).

As i said, I will let you decide yet honestly, I believe both arguments are valid and it is always depending on the case itself :)

Organization culture .. a small example from Ikea

Yesterday I went "again" to Ikea, I say “again” because in Jordan Ikea still did not open, so when I moved to Abu Dhabi, I went in one month less than 4 times, and not mainly for shopping :).

Now when I enter Ikea, I feel organization culture in the air, employees by the door offer to "lend" you yellow bags, a baggage cart that is designed to carry these bags and even if you enter the toilet in the first floor, everything designed to be efficient to use yet with quality! I also noticed on my right the kids area where Ikea put 4 posters to tell the parents "how to" leave their kids in that playing area. So in summery when I entered, from minute one, I understood what the organization culture was.

 “Which I don't know how accurate I am, yet I believe it is Quality and Efficiency and off course efficiency leads to a lower price”.

Now after doing all my shopping, I went to the cashier, I had so many small items, and two garbage canes, she asked me if I want to purchase a bag which I agreed and then she started putting the items in the new clean garbage cane in an amazing organized way, here it hit me, how did this cashier managed to reflect the culture in such way! the next logical question, what were the practices made by the company to transfer this culture specially that it will be impossible from a logical perspective to train the cashier on such practice, the only logical explanation that this lady was "sucked into" the organization culture in a way that here daily practices became a representation to the whole culture!
Now to look from a broader way, culture is not a training given to employees, as I said, you cannot train the cashier on acting the way the cashier lady did, culture is a change built by practice and small dosage of ideas presentation, and off course a commitment from everyone in the organization, culture cannot be built only by presenting a rewarding system, it cannot be explained by the motivation theories we studied and for sure, it is not only hiring the right fit people. Culture is a set of processes that starts from top of the hierarchy to the bottom, it is a mix of training plans, benefit and compensation, change management, recruitment and on boarding practices, processes, etc... That is built in a cohesive vision and if any of the previous was not on the same "page", the whole melody will be distorted.

I believe such a small practice for one employee can really represent if that organization is doing its job properly or not, that is going to Ikea is usually a joyful journey to me J … yes I am a freak :p .

One last thing, the Items they sell are really cheap!

Best Regards,
Alaa Zaghmout
SPHR, PMP

Purifiers and Polluters

Something I read yesterday and I liked from the book: Today Matters..

"One of my mentors, Fred Smith, once told me there are two kind of people in any organization: Polluters and Purifiers,  Polluters are like smokestacks, belching out dirty smoke all the time. They hate clear skies, and no matter how good it gets, they can fine a way to make it gloomy. When the people around them in the organization "breathe" their toxins, they feel sicker and sicker. Purifiers, on the other hand, make everything around them better. It does not matter what kind of rotten atmosphere they encounter. They make in the toxic words of polluters in the organization just as everyone else does, but they filter the word before passing them on. What goes in is a gloomy and negative, but when it comes back out, it is fresh and clear."

You cannot imagine the effect of this on motivation, performance and productivity, also it has a huge effect on recruitment and turnover cost.

So, HR should always try to detect during the interview, is the candidate Polluters and Purifiers, and should push to hiring Purifiers due the the positive effect they have on the team

Alaa Zaghmout
SPHR, PMP