Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Bad managers - how you can tell

Like trying to figure out some else's marriage, it is really hard to tell who is a good manager from the outside of an organization. Maybe they seem like a jerk to you, but their results are great? Maybe the employee that is complaining would complain no matter what? How can we determine who the worst managers are from the outside?

One very good way is to study how many people have left the organization and see how that compares to other groups and industry norms. Sometimes this is called the employee's voting with their feet. Granted, sometimes bad things happen good managers, so you need to examine the situation and see if the management is bad or just unlucky. High turnover is a classic warning sign of a bad manager.

There is a person at SIUC that has managed to turn over their staff at a rate in excess of 50% per year, with 100% leaving in just the 3 years I have been watching (this is a record in my experience). Well known as a management suck-up and cruel to everyone under their power, this person keeps their job through excellent effort in personal PR and having a spouse in a position to help protect their job in times of need. The jobs people are leaving are SIU full-time jobs that are pretty well paid for SI, full benefits and almost all of them have left for jobs that don't have benefits just to escape their manager. Take note, these are University people so you know they aren't big risk takers. Can you imagine? There is a manager at SIUC who has turned over their whole staff and is still a manager!

I have a crisp, new $2 bill that I will give to the person who correctly guesses who this loser is.

No comments: