Employee Retention
Despite economic changes, the issue
of employee retention is here to stay. The labor shortage that plagues
employers at the height of an economic boom will not vanish. It may be
temporarily off our radar now and then, but it will always be back,
stronger than ever.
Regardless of the performance of the
economy—the fact is we do not have enough quality people equipped with the
right skills to fill all the jobs available, and it’s going to get worse.
The labor pool is drying up. No longer is there a bottomless pit of
workers ready to knock on employer’s doors. The growth rate of the
workforce has been steadily declining since the 1970s. Both the U.S.
Census Bureau and a report from Andersen Consulting indicate that the
workforce will begin to experience a negative growth rate beginning in the
year 2015.
Workers in the 25 to 44 year old age
category—traditionally the source of executive talent—are already
disappearing. Front-line managers and supervisors are increasingly hard to
find. Information technology jobs are going unfilled. Vacancies in the
food industry and healthcare field are driving human resource
professionals to distraction.
In the long run, there will be more jobs
than qualified workers. The tight job market of the late 90s was just a
taste of difficulties to come. The outlook—increasing competition for
fewer qualified workers—will necessitate an enormous emphasis on the need
to retain those workers.
Not many organizations are ready to meet
this challenge.
Employers say they want loyal,
motivated employees who will stay committed to their organization. But
then they threaten these workers with layoffs and insult them with a work
environment where people have to work longer hours taking up the slack of
two or more people.
Our emphasis on short-term profits and
shareholder return has shattered the concept of the "lifetime job." With
that concept put out to pasture, today’s workers know that their employers
see them as expendable—so why should they give their best to an
organization that may lay them off when profits go south?
Meanwhile, those very employers who see
workers as expendable and not loyal tie up enormous amounts of time,
money, and energy in recruiting and replacing an endless stream of
workers.
That’s backwards. As our labor pool
shrinks, employers must focus on creating a work environment that lets
people work productively and effectively and makes them feel good enough
to stay.
That’s the subject of this book.
Here Today, Here Tomorrow
shows managers what it takes to create a
positive work environment that attracts, keeps, and motivates its
workforce to higher levels of performance. It is a complete guide to the
key elements that can transform high-turnover industries to high-retention
businesses.
Two key themes permeate this book.
First, retention matters. A continual
effort to replace departing workers—to keep the revolving door full,
instead of stopping it altogether—is bleeding U.S. businesses dry. It’s
expensive to constantly replace people. The cost of attracting,
recruiting, hiring, training, and getting new people up to speed is
tremendously more costly as well as tremendously more wasteful than most
realize.
Second, productivity is directly tied to
retention. Companies with high turnover are at risk for low productivity.
Studies from the Gallup organization show that employees who have an
above-average attitude toward their work will generate 38 percent higher
customer satisfaction scores, 22 percent higher productivity, and 27
percent higher profits for their companies.
This book shows you how to become an employer of choice organization. The right work environment can achieve both
of these goals. Whether a worker stays for two years or twenty, he or she
should be as productive as possible. If companies can’t guarantee lifelong
employment, at least they can create an environment that removes obstacles
to productivity for the life of a job.
In this book, you’ll read about companies
with work environments that attract and retain people—and where people are
willing to give their best. These environments aren’t expensive. In fact,
they save money. In many cases, they tremendously improve retention and
productivity without lavish salaries or bonuses. And they certainly lower
the expense of continually hiring and training new people.
This book shows why retention and
productivity must become a strategic issue of highest priority. It
introduces the elements of a high-retention workplace, and shows how to
implement them. It also offers vignettes and ideas from a wide range of
organizations that have learned that a positive work environment creates
happier, more productive workers and a healthier bottom line.
Why I Wrote This Book
I wrote this book for several reasons. The
most compelling is the pain I feel when I see human potential going to
waste. It’s heartbreaking to see people who are so hamstrung by poor
management or procedures that they are unable to enjoy what they do.
Whether they quit outright or only mentally resign from achieving above
minimum performance, there are two losers—the individual and the business.
My viewpoint on human potential has been
shaped by many years working with the military. I joined the military for
two main reasons: first, to follow in my father’s footsteps, and second,
to learn how to become a leader. My early years in the military were very
exciting and I certainly learned a great deal about leadership—the good
and the bad.
But the higher I moved up the ranks, the
more frustrated I became. Eventually it seemed to me that what mattered
wasn’t ideas or initiative, but rank, title, and the location of your
office. In basic terms, bureaucracy replaced leadership. It was more
important to protect the bureaucracy, the old way of doing things, than it
was to improve.
Eventually I found myself at the corporate
level of U.S. Army’s medical headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. I was the
Director of Quality Management and Strategic Planning when the military
was in the throes of change. The Berlin Wall had fallen and now the U.S.
Army found itself without an enemy for the first time since the Cold War.
Well, that’s not entirely true. We did find another enemy: ourselves. We
had become our own worst enemy.
During the 1980s and early 1990s part of my
job was to travel the nation attending the best education and training
sessions and looking for innovative examples in the private sector. To my
surprise I found that many private sector businesses were just as
bureaucratic as the military – sometimes even more so.
Through the efforts of senior military
leadership, we were able to help transform the military into a more
flexible and more responsive entity. Those successes experienced by the
military helped capture the attention of private sector businesses. When I
left the military I developed my own strategy, which combined the best
ideas the military had to offer with the best ideas of the corporate side.
With this knowledge I began working with other organizations interested in
creating work environments that lead to higher retention and better
productivity. Of all the lessons learned the one that stands central to
all is that retention, just like leadership, must begin at the top.
In this book, you’ll meet dozens of CEOs
who know that where they lead, their companies follow. When they decide to
value their employees….to discard old mindsets and replace them with
innovative new approaches…to replace ineffective management styles with
flexible, effective management practices….then it gets done. With the
support of top management, companies can create environments that nurture
retentionship and productivity.
In my travels and in working with my
clients, I have found that every industry—from food to hardware to
high-tech to tanning salons—want answers on how to improve workforce
retention and make employees more productive.
And in my travels, I found them. In
researching this book, I talked with dozens of companies that have created
humane, exciting, creative approaches to work—approaches that are
energizing their people and increasing their profits.
The variations are exciting, but the recipe
is simple:
- Don’t treat people like slaves
- Select better managers and develop them
into effective leaders
- Hold managers responsible for retention
in their departments
- Focus on building relationships with
people during their first week
- Provide a productive work environment
that limits work to 35 to 40 hours
- Pay competitively and offer benefits
that let employees take good care of themselves and their family members
- Make people feel good about themselves
and their work
- Provide opportunities for learning and
advancement
Companies who practice these principles
don’t have to worry about losing employees. Their people feel provided
for, and they are not going to jump ship for a $2 an hour pay raise. It’s
a win-win situation. Workers enjoy their workplace and earn a decent
salary, and employers save money they would otherwise invest in endless
recruitment and training.
Meanwhile, you can bet that the same
employers who downsized their workforce in the first quarter of 2001 will
be recruiting their replacements very soon. Unfortunately, they will
painfully discover how difficult it will be to find the same caliber of
workforce they let go.
If you have smart, gifted, well trained and
loyal workers who wouldn’t leave your company for a million dollars, I
congratulate you. If, on the other hand, you’re ready to do what you can
to bring the revolving door of personnel to a halt, read on. I hope this
book will inspire you to take the actions necessary to make your business
a place where your employees can say,
here today…and here tomorrow.
Call 800-821-2487 for
questions or information
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