Things Zimmer (Warsaw, IN) could change to keep people from leaving...

The #1 answer is get rid of DD and JM. So other than that, ways to keep and retain employees and improve Gallup scores?

 

Change in management is bound to happen in due course - not much us minnions can do there. So, thinking about from the perspective of, "what could their successors do differently?":

Get rid of dumb time consuming busy work projects like Gallup surveys. Hire more people so overworked people aren't further overworked and further burned out. Stop shortchanging LTI, like putting in place a max number of employees receiving LTI/options. Quit screwing around with bonus plan every year, making it more unrealistic for achieving bonus payouts by tying less and less of an individual's performance to their payout and more and more of it to sagging corporate market share performance. Pay more competitively to get people to move to (stay in) warsaw. Have an open dialogue about this exact topic, and you are sure to create a list of countless good ideas - just ASK people a reasonable question like this (and REALLY LISTEN) instead of trying to drive up gallup scores on questions like, "Do you have a BFF at work?". A key thing that HR likes to expouse is that the #1 reason for leaving a company is a bad boss, but yet they never do anything about the huge number of bad bosses. There are so many combustable a-holes with horrible people skills who are supposedly "managing" people, but all they are doing is running people off. Zimmer needs people in HR who aren't spineless. This is sure to be an interesting list that develops on CP.

 

Wow, pretty accurate call...totally agree. Have been at Zimmer for over 8 years now, never have seen such an exodus of high caliber people. This is not your typical, got your bonus and see you. There have been a steady stream of high performers leaving. Why? HR, please be realistic, this is not your standard attrition. Why flocking to Depuy and Biomet and not the other way around? Why can't folks see this?

 

Leadership and setting the tone, starts at the top.

 

Some input for those at the top. No surveys needed. No off-site leadership retreat. And it is free! How about just making it a good place to work! It is all cause and effect. High performing professionals do not leave well-run companies.

Give the middle management some authority. Why do we report to an associate director or director, when every little thing has to be approved or directed from our VP or GM. Micromanagement kills morale. You pay us to do a job, let us do it.

Make the tough decisions and stick with them. Don't tell us one thing one week, then the next week tell us something else.

Communicate! Why do we seem to find out about everything through the grapevine or when someone finally gets around to letting us know about it.

Prioritize and stop trying to have everything all at once and all right now. There are only so many of us and so many hours in a day. And we are getting fewer every week.

Work to train and develop us instead of just passing judgement on us once a year. Annual reviews seem to come across as a hassle, we are sorry to bother you. We can always just figure out how we are doing whenever you decide to have the next surprise layoff.

Focus on what is important, not what drives your next bonus.

Be consistent - When a company declares a budget freeze and suspends travel and training, then you GMs and VPs should not continue to trot all over the globe as if nothing has changed. That sends the wrong message. Sacrifice is for us little people, not for you leadership types.

Treat people with respect. How about a "Thank You" or a "Good Job" every now and then. Nitpicking our efforts and criticizing us in front of our co-workers does not motivate us. It ticks us off and causes us to not respect you. It may force us to deliver in the short term, but in the long term all it does is motivate us to hit the door and take our talent elsewhere. Fear does not motivate professionals, it motivates burger flippers and housepets.

Professionals do not worry about stupid surveys. Why do a survey when all you need to do is ask us how things are going. The need for a survey indicates a high level of mistrust within the organization. It says we do not trust you enough professionally to tell you what we really think. We are afraid you will hold it against us and brand us as "whiners".

Professionals see through half-hearted "engagement" plans. A crappy job with free cake every other month is still a crappy job.

Lot of common sense, guys.

 

Well spoken comments above, well done !

 

WOW. The truth summed up in one post. Well done.

 

WALK THE TALK!

Don't talk about how important 'balance of life' is to the company - then only recognize and reward the workaholics. Anyone who dares to attempt to balance work and family gets a dinky (or no) raise and suffers on their annual review (if they get one) and their forced ranking. "Sorry, but we had no choice but to rank you lowest in the group. So and so just works harder than you. You should try to be more like him."

Don't talk about how important employee morale is and how leadership is working on great plans to improve things - then do nothing, while employees continue to walk out the door.

 

I cannot believe I am the first to say STOP DOING AWAY WITH DISTRIBUTORS..... We all work our ass off so that some day we can have a shot at the same title. Now we live in fear of being pulled into the misery of a direct sales force. Give us our implants and instruments and then please just let us do what we are here to do and we all win in the end.

 

Why no more posts on this topic?
Maybe people have decided that instead of wasting time posting any ideas, they should spend their energy looking for a new job... No one is listening anyway.

Zimmer did another "engagement" survey. That should help. Good luck spinning three years of bad results and continued high levels of employee departures.

 

Stop pissing and crying all day long about this bullshit. It's a lousy company led by clowns so vote with your feet and leave. End of story.

 

Well even clowns can learn. Ever hear of Clown College?

 

Things will never change at ZMH. Newsflash, it is a very big corporation, not a family business where everyone gets a say on things should be done. Senior executives will continue to get top dollar in spite of their horrible leadership and the people doing the hard work day in, day out will continue to get less and less. It won't get better so don't kid yourself. There are far better companies out there to build a meaningful career.

 

Get rid of the GE management model. It only worked for Jack. No one has successfully implemented it anywhere.