Now's the Time to Get Rid of Bad Managers
You may have heard the saying, “the fish rots from the head.” Granted it’s not the most appealing analogy but there's a lot of truth to the adage, especially in an office environment.
Bad managers can break even the best of teams. That's why it's crucial to weed out the under-performing senior staff in your organization before the rot spreads, especially since extensive studies have proven that the #1 reason that employees leave is because of a poor relationship with a manager.
With an ongoing labor shortage, the last thing your organization needs as it tackles a new year is gaps in your workforce and operational headaches.
Identifying bad managers
Poor communication skills, micromanaging, passive aggressive behavior, conflict and criticism – bad management can take many forms - but all run the risk of poisoning their team's harmony and employee productivity.
A good manager inspires confidence in their team. A bad manager has them browsing the classifieds for other positions. A staggering 79% of people would quit their job because of bad leadership, according to a study from industry group CareerAddict, and just under half would return if their bad boss was replaced.
But it's not always as simple as replacing poor leaders, especially given the recent seismic shifts in the way we work. With more employees working remotely, it's harder to spot potential problems. A few virtual meetings and emails are rarely enough to resolve long standing leadership issues. In the remote workspace, it's all too easy for bad managers to escape notice.
Early warning signs include waning morale, increasing absenteeism and underperformance. If a previously efficient team starts missing deadlines, producing sub-standard work, or failing to hit their targets, look to their leader.
Signs of a Bad Manager: What to Look For
Recognizing a bad manager before the damage compounds requires knowing what to look for. Common signs of a bad manager include a team with disproportionately high turnover relative to the rest of the organization; a pattern of missed deadlines that predates recent hires and persists despite headcount changes; declining engagement scores over consecutive quarters among a team that was previously stable; a reluctance among employees to raise concerns or ask questions directly with their leader; and a consistent gap between how the manager describes their team's performance and how that performance shows up in output data.
Research supports the urgency. Gallup has found that managers account for at least 70 percent of the variance in employee engagement scores, and SHRM data shows that replacing a single employee costs between 50 and 200 percent of that person's annual salary depending on the role. Signs of a bad boss are rarely invisible. They show up in the data long before a formal complaint is filed.
How to Identify Bad Managers Through Data
One of the most persistent obstacles to identifying poor management is that the evidence tends to be anecdotal until it is too late. Exit interviews capture sentiment after the damage is done, and HR complaints require employees to take on personal risk before anything is formally documented.
Workforce analytics changes that equation. When you can track engagement score trends, output consistency, and collaboration gaps at the team level over time, bad manager warning signs become visible through objective data rather than waiting for a resignation wave to confirm what everyone already suspected. A team whose collective productivity, tool utilization, and engagement trends all point downward over time is telling you something specific about how it's being led. That's how to identify bad managers before the cost becomes unrecoverable.
New year, new team
As we kick off a new year, now's the time to make a change. If you need to switch up your staff, it's best to start putting that process in place now. It's no surprise that January and February are traditionally known as good hiring months. This is when companies have new hiring budgets in place and workers are seeking out new opportunities.
It remains to be seen whether 2022 will follow this pattern as economists predict the labor shortage will stretch into the full year, but that's even more reason to ramp up efforts to replace ineffective managers.
In a time of worker scarcity, it's better to lose one senior staff member than a whole team. Employees will only tolerate a bad manager for so long, and a flurry of sudden walkouts won't do anything to boost morale or productivity.
How to get staff back on track when bad managers are fired
Getting employees back on track after a leadership change requires a nuanced approach, especially in a remote setting. Post-pandemic, the workforce looks to be adopting a more hybrid approach that will force managers to adapt. Presenteeism is no longer the hallmark of an effective team as managers pivot to focus on results first.
New management styles need new tools. Productivity intelligence solutions such as are becoming increasingly popular as a way of keeping remote or hybrid teams on track. Prodoscore gives managers visibility into their team's daily activity to keep them accountable and engaged.
The platform hones in on areas for improvement so managers can see at a glance who's struggling and who's exceeding expectations. In the hands of a good manager, tools like this can transform teams so they hit their goals and achieve their targets every time.
To discover how Prodoscore can enhance your organization's workflow, contact us today to schedule a demonstration and consultation.
