Employee Retention Tips and Ideas
Each year U.S. businesses spend billions of dollars recruiting and replacing their employees. Individually, it costs between $2-11K to
replace an hourly employee, and upwards to $40,000 to replace a manager. One Silicon Valley company estimates the cost of replacing an employee is over $225,000.
As you know, it is getting difficult to attract and keep skilled employees. Many businesses and industries are desperate for help and can’t
find good people with the right skills and attitudes.
While many leading companies place more effort in employee retention, most are clueless. They accept employee turnover as a normal part of doing business. High turnover organizations spend disproportionate amounts of resources on recruiting and replacing their workforce, while smart organizations invest in employee retention. Yes, there is going to be turnover no matter what you do, but blindly ignoring the reasons for turnover is foolish and expensive.
Employees quit for many reasons but, in general, there are five important areas that motivate people to leave their jobs.
- Poor match between the person and the job
- Poor fit with the organizational climate and culture
- Poor alignment between pay and performance
- Poor connections between the individual, their coworkers, and the supervisor
- Poor opportunities for growth and advancement
These five P’s can be addressed successfully. Employee retention begins by paying attention to what causes low job satisfaction as well as what attracts, retains, and motivates your workforce. Here are a few important employee retention tips to consider:
Employee Retention Tip 1: Identify and weed out poor managers. The relationship with the employee’s front-line manager is the most common reason people leave. La Rosa’s is a large restaurant business with over 3000 employees. As part of their employee retention strategy, all employees evaluate their bosses twice a year using a special report card. It asks the employees to give their managers a letter grade from A to D in four categories. Any score less than a “B” requires a specific comment from the employee. After it’s completed, they tabulate the comments and design action plans for improvement.
Employee Retention Tip 2: Hold managers accountable for employee turnover. Set specific responsibilities for Human Resources, supervisors, and executives on what their specific role is in employee retention. Train managers so they understand what leads to higher retention and greater job satisfaction. Hold managers responsible for retention in their departments, set turnover goals for each manager, and track accordingly. Promote managers whose behavior is consistent with the organization’s values and philosophies.
Employee Retention Tip 3: Create a positive work environment. Money and benefits may bring employees through the front door, but poor work conditions drive them out the back.In its National Study of the Changing Workforce, the Families and Work Institute showed earnings and benefits have only a 3 percent impact on job satisfaction. “Job quality” and “workplace support” have a combined 70 percent.
Employee Retention Tip 4: Develop an “Onboarding” program for the first 90 days on the job. Don’t hire and abandon your new employees. Insure they get the support, training, and assistance they need. Quint Studer, CEO of the Studer Group, a consulting firm in Gulf Breeze, Florida, finds companies that take steps to “re-recruit” new employees can improve performance and reduce turnover in their first three months by as much as 66 percent.
Employee Retention Tip 5: Focus on individuals. You must manageEmployee Retention Workshop one employee at a time. Focus on the key jobs that have the most impact on profitability and productivity. Everyone has a different set of needs and expectations about their jobs. By conducting an individual retention profile, managers can quickly identify the employee’s unique motivations, goals, level of job satisfaction, as well as other expectations.
Employee Retention Tip 6: Focus on the family. One small company gives their employees’ children a $50 Savings Bond twice a year when they get straight A’s on their report cards. Another survey of 1,000 companies showed half of them let workers stay home with mildly ill children without using vacation or sick days. Two-thirds permit flextime defined as allowing employees to adjust work hours on a daily basis.Employee Retention Strategy
