“Good help is hard to find”

This quote is as true in hard economies as it is in good economies.  The retention of employees is something that all managers and all organizations must deal effectively with regardless of their current bench-strength.  If you current don’t have a problem with the retention of employees, it won’t be long before you do again.

Why Should I Care About the Retention of Employees?

There are a variety of reasons why organizations and individual managers should care about the retention of employees:

• Poor retention of employees will leave to turnover, and turnover is expensive.  The Journal of Compensation and Benefits estimates the cost of unwanted turnover to cost between 1.5 and 2.5 annual salary.
• Efforts to improve the retention of employees will allow you to capture discretionary effort.
• Recruiting is difficult and time consuming.  Your life as a leader will be much easier with better retention of employees.
• For the individual manager, it is worth noting that the retention of employees is not as much an organizational issue as a leadership driven one.  Most people “quit” their boss, not their employer.
• Many individual managers assume that the retention of employees is usually drive by compensation or other organizational factors.  In fact, employee surveys show that these issues are usually secondary.

The Three-Step Process to Improved Retention of Employees

1.    ASK. Not everyone values the same things, or the things that you value.  The only way to understand what will motivate people to stay or leave your organization is to ask.

2.    Tell them they’ve been HEARD. It is useless to ask, unless people know they have been heard.  The improved retention of employees requires you report back to those asked with what you’ve heard.

3.    ACT. You now need to act on the information you have gathered to improve the retention of employees

Step 1 to the Improved Retention of Employees:  ASK

• Figure out what people value.  A common mistake is to assume that all your people value the same things you do.  They do not.
• Do not discount inter-generational issues.  If you are managing people of a different generation then the things that would motivate you to stay or go, will almost certainly be different than the retention of employees of a different generation.
• The improved retention of employees requires that you ask people both collectively and individually:
  • Collectively:  Use surveys or focus groups to establish collective data and anonymous comments.
  • Individually:  The informal conversations you have with your people will give you insight into the things that they value, and whether you at risk of losing them.
• Don’t just ask once.  Organizations that are particularly good at the retention of employees are continually asking their people for feedback.  Sometimes this is done via rotating focus groups, while other organizations survey their people once every 12 or 18 months to get a pulse of the organization.

Step 2 to the Improved Retention of Employees:  Tell them they’ve been HEARD

• Respond in a timely manner with what you have learned.  The best way to sabotage better retention of employees is to ask people’s opinion, and then give them the impression they have been ignored.
• Communicate the collective list of what people value but don’t betray confidences.  If surveying an employee group, report back on high level themes and trends.  It may be easy to single individual comments out, but you need to resist the urge to do so.
• Based on the feedback given for the improved retention of employees, articulate the one or two things you intend to act upon.

Step 3 to the Improved Retention of Employees:  ACT

Below are some standard things for improving the retention of employees.  They are not intended to be a prescription, but rather thought starters for your own organization:

• Offer constant feedback.  People can never get enough, so the more feedback you offer, the more likely to improve your retention of employees.
• Role clarity and reinforcement.  People are most content when they have clear idea of what they are supposed to do, and this is continually reinforced in a positive way.
• Connect people to the big picture.  Nobody likes to toil in obscurity.  Connect people to the larger, organizational goals, and let them know how their contribution is important.
• Promote a deeper sense of cause.  Many organizations attempt to change the world in some small way.  Try to leverage this, if it applies to your organization.
• Build a community.  If people have a community at work, it makes it harder for them to leave.  If their social network is largely tied to work, then they would lose that if they chose to leave.
• Provide skill-building opportunities to improve the retention of employees:
  • Training and skill building can be motivating factor to stay with an organization.
  • Mentoring opportunities can help fortify relationships and build competence
  • Special assignments can build new skills, and improve the retention of employees.

• Flexible work or flexible hours.  This can be very important to some people.  Don’t rule it out, just because your organization hasn’t done it before.
• Provide career planning.  People want to progress, and if they have some idea of future opportunities, they are less likely to look elsewhere.
• Allow for project ownership.  Giving people authority and accountability for specific projects or initiatives can be a motivator to stay.
• Recognize personal needs.  Everybody wants to be treated as an individual with unique values and needs.  Where these can be accommodated, they can act as retention strategies.

3 Things to Remember about Improving the Retention of Employees:

1. Don’t wait for HR or the organization.  Individual leaders need to take this upon themselves – particularly when the larger organization fails to do so.
2. People may not value the same things as you.  Don’t project your own values on to others.  They may not care about an inflated title and a corner office.
3. Don’t commit to anything you’re not prepared to do well.  You make people cynical when you say you will do something and then don’t follow through.  Ensure you can live up to any commitments you make.

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Learn Even More About ‘Retention of Employees’

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