Tired blue collar worker kneeling in factory, due to poor management leading to high turnover reates

When Poor Management Leads to More Turnover

You’re hiring. Again. Not because you’re growing. But because people keep leaving.

And when you look deeper, it’s not the pay. It’s not the hours. It’s poor management.

People leave poor management.

Micromanagers. No-shows. Mood swings. Managers who play favorites. Or worse, managers who do nothing.

So what now?

Start at the Source

If managers are the problem, throwing another pizza party won’t help. You’ve got to develop the people in charge.

A manufacturing client told us: “We were bleeding good people. Exit interviews always mentioned their supervisor. We thought it was just personality conflicts. Turns out, we had people managing who’d never been taught how.”

Give them real leadership training. Not theory. Not 200-page books. Just practical, short-form training they can use on the job.

Hold them accountable. It’s not enough to hope they change. Set expectations. Follow up. And coach them through it.

We help managers identify how their behavior impacts engagement, from tone and timing to follow-through and consistency. Because high turnover is a lagging indicator. The leading indicator is leadership.

Give them a reason to stay. Burnt-out managers lead to poor management. If you want to keep your people, you have to invest in the ones leading them.

One oil field client said: “We used to promote our best hands and hope they’d figure out management. Half of them failed, and we lost good people. Now we train them first. Completely different results.”

Better managers. Lower turnover. Simpler math than most people want to admit.

People aren’t quitting the job. They’re quitting the manager. The Front Line Leadership program gives you stronger supervisors and fewer exit interviews. Learn how it works.