I had a virtual lunch with a co-worker yesterday. We are both sending resumes out and have applied to some of the same places. His experience with my employer is similar to mine. He’s demoralized and voting with his feet. A management position opened up last year, working under our former director. I was asked by a few co-workers why I didn’t apply for it. “The two most qualified people are you and Michael, you should apply.” I replied that Warren Buffett said that it’s never a good idea to marry for money, and if you don’t need the money, it doesn’t make any sense. There is no reason that I would want to work for that director, other than money, so I didn’t apply. Michael did apply, and he didn’t get it either. He turned around a huge project in 3 weeks, right before Christmas, something that would’ve taken others a few months to do, but it still wasn’t enough to get him the job. It went to someone who was much less qualified, but was a yes person to the director.
There is a saying that nobody leaves a job, they leave a bad manager. There is a cost to hiring bad managers. You create demoralized workers who don’t want to be there. The good ones will leave, and the bad ones will stay because they have no place better to go. What’s left is a place that you wouldn’t want to work at, and you wouldn’t want to do business with.