Most likely.
In any area of life, if you continue to find yourself facing the same problem over and over, it's time to take a look in the mirror.
But, staying focused on the title issue, people don't leave companies, they leave managers (usually).
I worked for a small business run by a close friend of mine. He was constantly flabbergasted at the drama and complaints that came from his team. However, he hoarded gifts (we frequently received business gifts from clients that were meant to be shared with all employees), ignored what was happening at work (he was rarely there even though he made himself GM and when he was there he was on Instagram) and just generally didn't want to be there.
Interestingly enough, despite all this, there was minimal turnover. He made an effort to be friends with everybody and make them at least somewhat happy, just because he genuinely wanted them to be happy. He was very nice to everybody all the time and encouraged having fun on the job. The business remained quite profitable (according to him, I didn't see the actual balance sheet) the entire time so there wasn't much reason for him not to continue to let people have fun at work.
He just hated being a GM and eventually sold the company to a corporate competitor. That's when the turnover began. The new GM was an operations genius but genuinely didn't care about what happened to anybody else at the store. I left right as this was happening but heard from my old coworkers, who all quit, that the place had turned to hell.
Of course you'll have employees who aren't a great fit, whether their work isn't up to par or they simply don't mesh with the company. But, ultimately, repeat turnover reflects on the quality of the management first and the quality of the role second.
If people keep leaving your company, the problem is you
byu/permanentburner89 inEntrepreneur
Posted by permanentburner89
1 Comment
Whoa… your close friend that ran the business prior to selling was a reluctant GM, huh? Wonder why he (or she) even put themselves into that role. Probably due to size or business type. Or maybe for the fact that he just didn’t want to trust anyone else with his business which is often the case with small business owners. Tough act to the follow with the corporate buyer and their GM. Usually when corporate buyers acquire “Main Street’ businesses, they often implement processes and systems to extract maximum value especially if they’re integrating the acquired business into either a vertical or horizontal corporate operational hierarchy. In other words, they’re going to get their return of and on investment the fastest way possible.
Now, on the management side of things, I agree with you. If all (or at least most) of the workers are leaving and the GM stays they same, then I’d assume it’s safe to say that it’s the GM’s lack of management savvy and leadership (coaching) skills. This is also assuming that we’re talking about a large enough sample size to really make this assertion. In other words, once the original staff left, how often and at what magnitude did the subsequent staff turnover? At least the staff that he hired directly or had a hand in hiring and training. Again, sounds like to me that a lack of adequate management and leadership skills were the prime reasons for the new GM’s lack of success with the original staff post acquisition.