At the company that I spent the most time with (15 years), I had 34 manager changes and 33 different managers during that time. Just curious if anyone can do better than that? One of my good friends that started at the same time as I had 35 manager changes, but only 32 different managers.

But who really cares how many managers we had? What difference does that make?

It really doesn’t make a difference to you unless you learn a lesson from that experience. Here is that lesson:

You have perhaps heard it said that 75% of people do not quit their job; they quit their manager. In our case, since we knew we’d be getting a new manager very soon, we didn’t quit for that reason…we knew we could last 6 months with a bad manager before we got a new one, so it really didn’t matter.

But things are different today. In fact, the relationship of an employee to their manager is even more important. The statistics are telling us that with Millennials, that number of 75% is no longer true…it is now 85%! In other words, a bad manager impacts a Millennial even more than it does for previous generations. Couple that with the facts that Millennials will change jobs much quicker than previous generations, and you’ve got a volatile situation on your hands! If I had been a Millennial when working for that company, I would have probably left it at least 15 times. Millennials will not hang around 6 months to see if they get a better boss. They’ll leave next week!

So, what can you do about this? The answer is actually very easy to understand, but may be a bit difficult to implement. The answer lies in training.

First, your leaders need to be able to develop positive relationships with all the employees they are responsible for. Many times, they will need an attitude change, but developing relationships is a skill that can be taught and learned. It takes work, but it is doable by most people. This will have a huge impact on the productivity and longevity of a team.

Second, you need to provide training for all of your team in different areas, both technical and personal. If you really think about it, every generation wants to continue to learn. If someone doesn’t want to learn, then perhaps they are not a good fit for your team. The great workers all want to learn more.

Finally, you must have a focus on getting each of the different generations to communicate effectively with the other generations. This is not to say that you pick only one method of communication; rather, you teach every generation what works for the others, and then make each person responsible for adapting to the other generations. If each of us is trying hard to communicate effectively with someone who is different from us, we have a much better chance of understanding them and improving our relationship significantly.

If you follow these 3 steps, I can guarantee you workforce will be much happier and more effective in all that you do.

For those that want to hear more about this, there is a free workshop on November 15 from 11:15 am – 12:45 pm. Register here: http://generations.ezregister.com