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Lateral quitter: Difference between revisions
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{{a|hr|{{image|employee spread|png|The general spread of your staff, on a cost versus value graph}} | {{a|hr|{{image|employee spread|png|The general spread of your staff, on a cost versus value graph}} | ||
{{image|replacement cost of lateral quitter|png|The true replacement cost of a lateral quitter}}}}{{quote|“Our people are our most precious resource.” | {{image|replacement cost of lateral quitter|png|The true replacement cost of a lateral quitter}}}}{{C|newsletter draft}}{{quote|“Our people are our most precious resource.” | ||
: — oddly disingenuous slogans of HR: an occasional series}} | : — oddly disingenuous slogans of HR: an occasional series}} | ||
{{d|{{PAGENAME}}|ˈlætərəl ˈkwɪtə|n|}}One who voluntarily leaves your organisation to work somewhere else. A greatly ''unexamined'' constituency. | {{d|{{PAGENAME}}|ˈlætərəl ˈkwɪtə|n|}}One who voluntarily leaves your organisation to work somewhere else. A greatly ''unexamined'' constituency. | ||
=== | |||
=== Lateral quitters are ''good'' staff, [[Q.E.D.|QED]] === | |||
General ''[[a priori]]'' proposition: lateral quitters are ''good'' employees: ones you ''don’t'' want to leave, who add value. At least, they will be if HR is doing a passable job — [[Spartan if]] — because if so, ''poor staff won’t be leaving of their own free will''. | |||
Commercial firms are not charities for the intellectually vulnerable.<ref>Though, some forget this. A large financial services institution recently displayed in its internal branding: “We are proud of our [[diversity]] policy. We hire regardless of physical or mental ability.”</ref> They should actively exit employees who are not performing to expectation. They should care, a lot, about looking after employees who are. | |||
Maxim: {{maxim|Professional employment should not be a hostage situation. Either way.}} | |||
===The wilful blindness of management=== | |||
Management will steadfastly deny any lateral quitter is missed. The trend towards “[[exit interview]] by [[chatbot]]” — if they bother with one at all — suggests corporations systematically undervalue the people they are losing. | Management will steadfastly deny any lateral quitter is missed. The trend towards “[[exit interview]] by [[chatbot]]” — if they bother with one at all — suggests corporations systematically undervalue the people they are losing. | ||
[[HR]] departments everywhere seem gripped by the conviction that having employees ''at all'' is a matter for regret. Convinced that robots, | [[HR]] departments everywhere seem gripped by the conviction that having employees ''at all'' is a matter for regret. Convinced that robots, [[chatbot]]s, [[offshoring]], or [[outsourcing]], are better options, the [[HR]] military-industrial complex makes scant effort to discourage, impede or even ''identify'' those thinking of leaving, let alone asking those who do what their motivations were. | ||
Now: if staff are such a waste of time, why go to the trouble of hiring them at all? | |||
On the premise that all staff bring ''some'' value and, unless your approach to hiring is properly catastrophic, a good half bring [[Cost-value threshold|more than they cost]], lateral quitting is, broadly, a [[negative-sum game]]. That is, a game businesses should try not to play. | On the premise that all staff bring ''some'' value and, unless your approach to hiring is properly catastrophic, a good half bring [[Cost-value threshold|more than they cost]], lateral quitting is, broadly, a [[negative-sum game]]. That is, a game businesses should try not to play. | ||
If you must view your staff as capital, then look at it this way: sell ''under''performing assets, by all means. Don’t let ''performing'' assets walk out the door. | |||
So, ''some'' curiosity amongst the good people of [[human resources]] might be in order, for no other reason than to generate juicy [[metric]]s. | So, ''some'' curiosity amongst the good people of [[human resources]] might be in order, for no other reason than to generate juicy [[metric]]s. | ||
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===The [[data]]-richness of resignation=== | ===The [[data]]-richness of resignation=== | ||
The [[JC]] finds inflated expectations of aggregated data tiresome — necessarily dead and backward-looking as data are — but even they have some worth when the questions | The [[JC]] finds inflated expectations of [[data modernism|aggregated data]] [[tiresome]] — necessarily dead and backward-looking as data are — but even they have some worth when the questions asked are themselves historical. | ||
So: | |||
What percentage of staff ''chose'' to leave? In what departments? After how long? At what seniority? From which departments? ''Where'' to? ''Why''? | |||
This kind of data might suggest answers to the question: ''what does the firm do, or permit, that drives good people away''? | |||
Who are the poor managers? Where are the dreary departments? Which level is least proportionately rewarded? Answering questions like these can, in a small way, inform future behaviour: ''do more of this, and less of that''. | |||
It also turns the competency spotlight on an area where, internally, it is rarely pointed: ''management''. | |||
The [[exit interview]] is a unique chance to gather information staff are otherwise ''strongly'' disinclined to give you. Strictures of [[chain of command]] and conventions of corporate obsequy mean continuing staff — those with half a brain, at any rate — won’t usually tell you what they really think. | |||
''What pissed you off about working here? Who were the shittiest managers? What was the biggest drag?'' | |||
But free, for the first and last time, of those chilling effects of free speech, ''they might just tell you in an [[exit interview]]''. | |||
Why not at least ''ask''? | |||
===The [[competence phase transition]]=== | ===The [[competence phase transition]]=== | ||
One cannot be binary about good and bad staff. There ''is'' a “[[bid/ask spread]]” between staff you genuinely value and those you would not mind never seeing again. | |||
This we call the “[[competence phase transition]]”. It is a sort of purgatorial state, occupied by earnest plodders who don’t ''quite'' earn their keep but do no real harm, such that no-one can summon the bureaucratic energy to whack them, but nor would anyone wrong hands if they did decide to push off. | This we call the “[[competence phase transition]]”. It is a sort of purgatorial state, occupied by earnest plodders who don’t ''quite'' earn their keep but do no real harm, such that no-one can summon the bureaucratic energy to whack them, but nor would anyone wrong hands if they did decide to push off. | ||
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===[[Mediocrity drift]]=== | ===[[Mediocrity drift]]=== | ||
''Anyway''. Being smart, lateral leavers tend to ''know'' they are | ''Anyway''. Being smart, lateral leavers tend to ''know'' they are better employees and be the proactive and energetic type who will do something about it. | ||
Those plodders who provide an undervalue, by contrast, are ''unlikely'' to do anything about it — if they are smart — and even the dumb ones who try won’t be ''able'' to. | Those plodders who provide an undervalue, by contrast, are ''unlikely'' to do anything about it — if they are smart — and even the dumb ones who try won’t be ''able'' to. | ||
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===The [[loyalty discount]]=== | ===The [[loyalty discount]]=== | ||
“But | “But we will reward the best staff with better pay and progression” will come the objection. While it may be true in a limited sense — you’d need planetary-scale density ''not'' to prefer good performers over bad ones, though this won’t stop HR trying — relative performance ''to each other'' — is not the measure that matters. It’s not a measure that even makes ''sense''. What matters is net outcome: what do you get out of an employee, compared to what you put in. | ||
[[HR]] will have ironclad compensation bands, based not on any assessment of individual quality (because how could HR, of all functions, possibly know?) but by some opaque “benchmarking” operation carried out by consultants “gathering data” from industry peers. However good an individual is, she will be forever pegged within her bands. | The problem, of course, is that beyond revenue generating roles, and especially for risk management and control staff ''it is really hard to know''. How ''do'' you measure [[legal value]]?<ref>Divers essays on [[legal value]], [[bullshit jobs]] and so on, refer.</ref> How do you count the dogs that don’t bark in the night-time? | ||
[[HR]]’s stock answer is not to try. Instead, focus on what you do know — the spread of salaries across grades — and to focus on regularising that. Insist on fitting staff, to a model of relative performance against each other — the dreaded “[[curve]]”.<ref>how do you use data measure the relative worth of a football team? Does the striker who runs 10km, scores a goal a game better than the goalie who covers 400m and scores none. Jaap Stamp example.</ref> | |||
This has all kinds of unwanted upshots, not least of which is instilling fear and loathing within a team which is meant to be collaborating. If ''you'' get to be the A-grade performer, then I ''can’t'' be. By HR diktat, a team of outperformers cannot exist. | |||
To this end, [[HR]] will have ironclad compensation bands, based not on any assessment of individual quality (because how could HR, of all functions, possibly know?) but by some opaque “benchmarking” operation carried out by consultants “gathering data” from industry peers. However good an individual is, she will be forever pegged within her bands. | |||
Where exactly this data comes from, no-one will say. Even if the consultants don’t just make it up out of whole cloth — [[Spartan if]] — it ''will have been volunteered by other HR departments''. Now think about the interests at play here. If you were the highest payer on the street — therefore having a natural advantage over your peers in the lateral hire market — wouldn’t you want to keep ''quiet'' about that? Wouldn’t you be [[inclined to]] undercook the data you submitted to benchmark surveys? Would you weed out, for example, the lateral quitters who weren’t there at year end? | Where exactly this data comes from, no-one will say. Even if the consultants don’t just make it up out of whole cloth — [[Spartan if]] — it ''will have been volunteered by other HR departments''. Now think about the interests at play here. If you were the highest payer on the street — therefore having a natural advantage over your peers in the lateral hire market — wouldn’t you want to keep ''quiet'' about that? Wouldn’t you be [[inclined to]] undercook the data you submitted to benchmark surveys? Would you weed out, for example, the lateral quitters who weren’t there at year end? | ||
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Once they have successfully “benchmarked” their salary bands against this phantom market, HR’s main concern will be ''not [[setting a precedent]]''. Your manager will shake his head mournfully and say, “my hands are tied.” There will be overlaid volatility limits: no individual can move more than ~ percentage of last year’s pay. Note the necessary compressing effect these limits will have through time. | Once they have successfully “benchmarked” their salary bands against this phantom market, HR’s main concern will be ''not [[setting a precedent]]''. Your manager will shake his head mournfully and say, “my hands are tied.” There will be overlaid volatility limits: no individual can move more than ~ percentage of last year’s pay. Note the necessary compressing effect these limits will have through time. | ||
{{Sa}} | {{Sa}} | ||
*[[Extreme prejudice]] | |||
*[[Legibility]] | *[[Legibility]] | ||
*[[mediocrity drift]] | *[[mediocrity drift]] | ||
*[[Loyalty discount]] | *[[Loyalty discount]] | ||
{{Ref}} | |||