Inc. magazine just confirmed what we've been warning about for years: only 30% of employees want leadership roles anymore. Your best people are watching fellow employees get promoted and struggle - then deciding "I don't want that job." Here's why this is happening, what it's costing you, and how to fix it before your competitors do.

Inc. Magazine just published something that should concern every operations leader: only 30% of employees want to move into leadership roles anymore.

Think about that. Seventy percent of your workforce is looking at supervisor positions and saying "no thanks." And here's what should really worry you - the people refusing these promotions might be your best candidates. The ones with the right attitude, the right demeanor, the people who actually care about the work and the team.

Inc. just confirmed what we've been saying for years. This isn't a motivation problem. It's a training problem.

Why Your Best People Are Saying No

The Inc. article nailed it in seven words:

"Nobody showed them how to lead effectively."

Your best people have been watching. They've seen fellow employees get promoted to supervisor and then struggle. They've watched co-workers who were confident and capable suddenly become stressed and overwhelmed. They've seen brand new supervisors left alone to figure things out through trial and error, making mistakes that hurt their teams and their own confidence.

And they've decided: "I don't want that to be me."

The data backs up what they're seeing.

• 66% of managers get eight hours or less of training. Eight hours. That's a single day.
• And here's the real kicker: 43% of new leaders get no training at all. None. Zero. New supervisors are essentially abandoned.

You promote your best employees and, by virtue of their new title, expect them to magically know how to lead. You wouldn't put someone on a new piece of equipment without training them first. So what makes you think it's OK in a leadership role?

No wonder they struggle. Wouldn't you?

What This Costs You

Throwing a new supervisor into their position without leadership skills sets you up to lose on multiple levels.

First, you lose team productivity. Research shows productivity variations between teams can be 15 to 25% based entirely on supervisor quality. Same equipment, same processes, completely different results. That gap is pure waste.

Second, you lose good employees. When supervisors don't know how to lead, employee turnover goes up 20 to 30%. And we're not talking about marginal performers - we're talking about the employees you want to keep. The ones who have options and will use them.

Third, you lose your future leaders. When your top performers see their supervisor struggling, they think, "I don't want that job." You're actively discouraging the exact people you will want to promote in the future. You're creating your own leadership pipeline problem.

And here's the compounding effect. Every month you wait to give your frontline supervisors the skills they need to be successful, more good people decide leadership isn't worth it. More supervisors struggle. More teams underperform. The gap between you and the competitors who develop their leaders gets wider.

The Traditional Approach Doesn't Work

You already know you need to do something. You talk about the problems in your management meetings. And your traditional approaches are not solving the problem.

You've probably already figured out that building a training program from scratch takes 6 to 9 months and costs $75,000 to $150,000. Then you need at least half an FTE to maintain it. By the time you're ready to launch, you've lost another year of potential improvement.

Classroom training is a broken model. You can't pull supervisors off the floor for days at a time and expect them to sit through sessions, retaining only about 20% of what they hear. Completion rates are terrible. And most of what they learn doesn't translate to the real situations they face every day.

So, you're left with the trial-and-error approach: the dumbest way to learn anything. You're teaching new supervisors to learn by making mistakes - mistakes that cost you in productivity, safety, morale, and turnover.

Here's the truth: while you talk about the challenges you're having, your competitors are already skilling-up their supervisors. The gap between you gets bigger every day you wait. In today's competitive market, if you're not moving forward, you're falling behind.

What Actually Works

Supervisors need development that fits into their actual workday, not something that pulls them off the floor for days or weeks. They need to learn skills they can use right away. Something they can learn, and then minutes later try it out while front-facing their teams. And, they need ongoing regular live coaching as they practice these new skills. Supervisor development is not a one-and-done event.

What works is building one skill at a time over a period of months. Teaching them how to build trust, how to coach performance improvements, and how to create a team culture where people hold each other accountable because they're connected to each other.

Do this right, and something changes. Supervisor positions become much more attractive to your best employees because they know they're being set up to succeed. Consistency improves across your teams because everyone's learning the same approach. You build the leadership pipeline you're going to need when you open that new facility or when your operations manager retires.

The Ready-Now Solution

For years, we watched companies promote good people and hope they'd figure out leadership on their own. And we warned companies that it can't be sustained. We kept saying, "Supervisors need to be set up to succeed."

So we built the PeopleWork Supervisor Academy.

It's a 58-week program built on two components: micro-learning videos and live group coaching. And supervisors only need to invest less than ten minutes a day, learning that they can apply minutes later. Couple that with live coaching in small groups, and you have a program that isn't a one-and-done program. It's a long-term learning investment in a skills and tools transformation.

No pulling people off the floor. No operational disruption. No hoping they remember what they learned in a classroom six months ago, because the program stays with them for 58 weeks.

The results? Supervisors tell us they're using what they learn immediately. They've shifted from firefighting to coaching. They're communicating more effectively with their team members. And 30-year management veterans tell us they are learning new tools and techniques that improve their results.

Your Move

Right now, your best employees are watching how you're handling things with your current supervisors, and they're making decisions about their own futures.

Are they seeing confident leaders who know how to connect with their teams? Or are they seeing supervisors struggling?

We're here to help. Let's talk about what this looks like for your company, the challenges you're facing right now, and the leaders you need to develop.

Because your best people will want to step up and be leaders when you show them they'll be supported.

Schedule a consultation to discuss your supervisor development needs

About PeopleWork Supervisor Academy

PeopleWork Supervisor Academy provides industrial companies with comprehensive supervisor development that fits into the workday. Through daily micro-learning and live group coaching, supervisors develop the leadership skills that drive operational excellence - in under 10 minutes a day.

Learn more at PeopleWorkAcademy.com