The Blatant Unfairness of Retaining Poor Supervisors

November 12, 2024
CJ Higginbotham
Articles

Let’s imagine this scenario. If a company has 40 supervisors and we rank them on their overall effectiveness, then logically one of these supervisors is the best, one is the worst, and the remaining 38 rank 2^nd through 39^th. Let’s set aside for now what this company does or how each supervisor’s effectiveness is measured, and instead let’s just accept that in any supervisory group that there’s a best, a worst, and the rest.

Now let’s add to this scenario an assumption, that the bottom ten percent of the supervisors are so substandard that they hurt productivity such that they should be replaced. These four have been coached, trained, and received just feedback, but they just can’t find the skill or the will to perform their jobs better, to perform their jobs adequately.

There are several potential fates for our performance-deficient four. Each might be fired, or transferred to another role, or be left alone to continue their inadequacy. These decisions might be made based on time in position, time with the company, or how each of their own managers choose to handle the situation. And certainly the degree of relationship warmth between each of these bottom four and their managers will come into play.

Performance measurements will impact these decisions as well. Let’s apply some of the usuals like sales, service, safety, or product defects in manufacturing, patient care in healthcare, or maybe first-call resolution in call centers.

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Further Reading: How Bad Managers Drive Turnover

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The Big Left-Out Consideration for Poor Supervisor Retention

These decisions by their nature are viewed from the top down, for example how much of these metric shortcomings impact the next-up manager’s scoresheet, and then all the way to the top. Let’s turn that thought on its head though, and ask how does each bottom-tier manager’s performance impact those who work below him.

Each new hire in your company draws the equivalent of a straw, with a long straw meaning I got a good boss and a short straw meaning the opposite. We have no control over the length of our straw, only that we are now in the door and must manage our daily work success within the confines of the supervisor given to me.

Supervisor Performance Gap Examples

Let’s take our work fable a bit further now, with two newbies starting in the same job on the same day…and one reports to the top supervisor and the other reports to the worse one. Which of these new hires has the better opportunity to learn to perform her job more effectively?

Or to learn new skills better and more quickly?
Or to learn the professional ways to work with colleagues?
Or to learn the professional courtesies of helping each other and joining in on their successes?
Or to perform at her best out of an inner-born obligation to earn her place as a respected member of the team?
Or being ready to replace someone above her when they move on?

And which of these new hires is more likely to become fully engaged in her work and to ultimately stay longer, while providing year-after-year contributions that make her team, her manager, and her company all perform better?

The Split-Screen Lives of Employees with Good & Bad Supervisors

Let’s then fictionalize our work fable to an early evening interview on one of our news stations where an employee who works for a top supervisor is paired with one who works for a poor one. The moderator asks each the same questions about being recognized, being coached, celebrating successes, and learning and expanding in the job. The moderator asks how each feels when commuting to work in the morning or discussing their workdays with their families at night.

We would all predict the following:

The good-manager employee would be brighter, more animated, bring more energy to the interview, and provide more specific and joyful examples of working for that good supervisor.
The bad-manager employee on the other hand would be careful with words, say fewer of them, and share less energy and fewer indications of emotion. And would ultimately perform less good work that the good-manager employee and would flee the company sooner.

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Further Reading: Seven Proofs Managers Drive Retention, Not HR

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The Moral of Our Poor Supervisor Retention Fable

When I speak at HR conferences, I often ask those in the group to raise their hands if they know from quick-recall memory the worst five or so managers in their companies for turnover and engagement. The great majority immediately raise a hand. So your worst managers are well-identified, are known to those who rank both above and below them.

While these managers fail to achieve metrics, more importantly they betray the messages on your website career page that tell applicants you provide opportunities for growth, for advancement, for being part of a special team. And these short-straw employees might contain your future CEO or other executive, who will of course flee to your competition or any other organization.

We know that one of the most common ways to lose top performers is to surround them with poor performers. Especially if one of those poor performers is their boss.