By Jim Woods

Perhaps I am among contrarian thinkers who believe poor performers are a reflection of their management. An organization is certainly not a fit for all people. However, your selected employee successfully went through your hiring process. So what went wrong?

1. Were their ideas addressed?
2. When did their performance dwindle?

Gallup states that over 70% of managers are incompetent. Great article by Jim Clifton of Gallup. That being said what would better managers do for your hiring and retention, customer service, innovation and bottomline? Employee engagement is such an overused expression tantamount to diversity or women in business. The flavor of the month as if they were newly developing issues. My friend Paul Keijzer writes in a recent blog post of 4 Unavoidable HR Trends Shaping 2017. They are not new. Yet, Paul offers that reminder. If you treat employees as customers and not serfs your customer service will become legendary creating a formidable competitive advantage without reducing costs. Writes Paul:

Exploit Employee Potential A trend that’s still continuing in 2017 is the ability of your top talent to find opportunities elsewhere. It’s always been the case that your star performer will be the first to leave as the market will hunt them down and attract them. And their exit means all the time and money you’ve invested in training and developing them walks out the door. So who are you left with? Those employees who are average or poor performers since they aren’t highly in demand and know that you’re running out of options. These aren’t the talent who can help your business grow exponentially – not unless you invest in them! In 2017 organizations may have been able to reduce several HR costs, but their costs related to training and recruiting new talent has substantially increased.

To curb this expense, there’s been an increasing trend of training and developing current talent – even if they aren’t star performers. Rather than being held hostage by their inability to perform at high levels, organizations have been investing in their existing talent to make them more productive and effective. This of course helps them reduce the cost of recruiting and training new talent and allows them to exploit their current employees’ potential. In essence, 2017 has seen an increasing trend of getting rid of complacency. via http://www.paulkeijzer.com

Over the years I strongly caution my friends despite their thing to the contrary that employees are as vital to customer service as the customer is. Moreover, as an oft quoted adage goes, Fish stinks first at the head." When performance dwindles look at management. Do they engage or use the stick in the carrot approach. I was never a man motivated to follow the line by coercion. 

• Recognize employees have options. 
• Have a brown bag lunch with them in small groups with some they can relate to. 
• If employees don't trust you they won't remain.
• Notice the hands with questions in your meetings. Are they the same? 
• How do you handle those who will privately disagree with your opinions. 

You want those who will tell you to take a "flying leap." They are innovators not followers beholden only to a check. These people want to be partners.

What is an area of your business that is not the way you want it? See what we can do to help you now. Go> Jim

Jim Woods is a successful leadership trainer and speaker and executive coach. He speaks on employee engagement, leadership and change management, leading instead of managing and customer service. He is an author, a former fifth grade and university teacher with an impressive resume. He is beloved by audiences. To schedule a speaking engagement with Jim please schedule an engagement here. Go>. Connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.