A situation arose recently in which a client sought our assistance after a number of good employees resigned, with seemingly no warning. These were team members who were amongst the best - consistently doing their jobs well, showing resilience and leadership, and putting their hands up for extra tasks - real assets to the organisation.
Management was at a loss to explain what had occurred, as well as facing rebuilding the organisation without these valuable team members.
Getting to the crux of it
Getting open and honest feedback at exit interviews can be challenging, but once they understood our involvement, these team members were willing to provide feedback and share some insights. What we uncovered is both common and applicable to many organisations.
When the current manager started with the organisation, she had great ideas, was open to employees’ suggestions and generated a lot of excitement and interest from the team. Team members happily stepped up to take on more responsibility and had the resilience to ride through the changes that the new manager brought, carrying each other along on a wave of enthusiasm.
Advance two years, and the picture was quite different. The manager had become bogged down in the challenges of her role. She no longer emanated enthusiasm, employee input was no longer sought, and in fact, team members now found her to be quite unapproachable. On top of this, in the 12 months prior, the demands on them had increased significantly, with very short timelines expected to be met and (they felt) no acknowledgement of the work done. Put simply - more work with fewer resources.
Even the highly productive, reliable and resilient team members were complaining to one another. They felt overworked, under-appreciated and disengaged with the work and the workplace. The manager was oblivious to the changes occurring as she struggled to manage the demands being placed on her from above. The resultant resignations came as a shock. And were clearly going to make her role even more challenging in the short term.
Lessons for us all
Whilst there are lessons here for us all around leadership, such as putting in place sustainable work practices, keeping a finger on the pulse through regular 1:1 meetings etc., an additional strategy you could trial in your practice is an anonymous feedback facility.
If your team has the opportunity to provide feedback about their concerns as these arise in a safe (anonymous) manner, they’re more likely to share what they’re experiencing. Ideally, they’ll also provide suggestions for how to avoid a recurrence of the issues and strategies to get the desired results without the upsets! As a manager/owner, you can take these insights, implement relevant strategies to address the issues and potentially end up with even greater commitment and engagement from the team as a result, turning negative situations into positive outcomes.
More tips to really make it effective
For such a strategy to be fully effective, the person responsible for receiving and actioning the feedback needs to:
Be genuinely open to the process.
Not take items raised personally.
Ensure action is taken in a timely manner.
Communicate regularly with all team members regarding updates on the issues raised, the ideas put forward to address these and the actions being taken.
A similar approach can also be very valuable with your clients/customers/patients, where retention is equally important!
You might also like to check out these resources - our Getting The Feedback Flowing In Your Practice article, and our Employee Feedback Survey Template.
If you’d like support with setting up a feedback facility or addressing HR challenges in your workplace, please get in touch for a free initial chat with the Augmentum team.
The Augmentum team provides a broad range of consultancy and management services, supporting healthcare business owners and decision-makers in many key areas, such as strategy development and action planning, building effective foundations and teams, keeping your finger on the pulse, and driving growth and success.
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