Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

With the continuing challenge of retaining good employees, we need to understand a key element of that crucial area as far as it applies to managers. In one survey it has shown that 36 percent of people that quit their jobs aren't quitting the company, but are quitting the manager or supervisor over them.

When it is realized that over one out of three workers quit for that reason, we need to look at ways to drop that number way down. The ability to get quality people is going to get harder and harder as the workforce pool decreases now and in the years ahead.

The key to all of this is what is unfortunately called "soft" skills. I hate that designation. It's another way of saying the way someone interacts with and treats people. What's soft about that? It's the most important skill any manager could have.

The problem is that companies will put someone in management that has high technical skills but very little people skills. They are being set up for failure.

There is one thing more than any other that I think can deal with this situation: make managers accountable for employee retention. Why shouldn't we be?

More important than that though, is what that accountability causes a manager and business to focus on; how to keep the employee. It is there that you search out and discover that which is needed to do the job. If this isn't done, many people don't even consider improving their people skills at all.

What it all comes down to is treating people above our own interests; that is the bottom line. It's simple, effective, and beats anything else for employee retention. This is going to be increasingly important in the employee shortage that is now upon us.