Employee Retention
Now that you have hired the right person, you want them to be a part of the organization for many years to come. The less turnover, which is the coming and going of employees, the better. It reduces costs, keeps morale high, and you get full return on your investment. You need to keep your new hires, and existing staff, happy and content as discussed in lesson 3.
Finding the best people who can fit within your culture, and contribute within
your organization, is a challenge and an opportunity. Keeping the best people, once you find them, is easy if you do
the right things.
These 16 specific actions will help you with recruiting and retaining all the talent you need:
1. Be known as a great company to work for. If your company has the reputation as being the best, people
will not want to leave. Why would
anyone want to leave a place they love?
A place where people envy and wish they were able to work?
2. Be known as
a great boss to work for. You
want your employees saying, and truly meaning, that you are the best boss. Implementing all of what is taught in this
course will surely help make that happen.
Point to keep in mind; it is more
common for people to leave due to quality of supervision than any other
reason. You do not want people leaving
because of you, or your supervisory staff.
3. Always
provide the right tools and training.
The easier a person can do their job, and the more they know about their
job, the more likely they will be comfortable and not want to leave.
4. Continue to promote the best. You want your employees to know that when they strive to be the
best, they can be promoted and grow with the company.
5. Pay better than
the competition. Although this
is fairly obvious, and has already been mentioned earlier in this lesson, it is
still worth mentioning again.
6. Use your
influence to have, and keep, the best benefits package. This helps you personally, helps retain your
employees, and helps the company as a whole.
People will not want to leave a company with a great benefit plan. Even if the competition pays better, knowing
you are secure in benefits can outweigh the other. This includes medical, dental, life insurance, and
retirement. Matching 401k’s are also a
big incentive to stay with the company for the long-term.
7. Have a
company bonus plan. If the
employee knows that they will get a bonus if the company hits the yearly goals
and targets, the more likely they are to stay.
Even if the company missed the year-end bonus target, there is always
the hope for next year. That right
there just helped retain an employee for an additional 12 months.
8. Offer stock
options. This is a great way to
keep people for 4 or more years, due to most options are fully vested by the 4th
year. For example, 25% vested after
year 1, 50% vested after year 2, etc.
9. Offer
tuition reimbursement. As
long as they are with the company, and are taking a course that is related to
their position within the company, it’s a win/win situation when the company
pays for tuition fees. This helps
retain the employee for at least a year or two, and people tend to stay with a
company that treated them so well, even after the course is through.
10. Competitive
vacation package. The longer you
are with the company, the more vacation time is added. For example, you get two weeks vacation
after years 1 and 2, three weeks vacation after year 3, four weeks vacation
after year 4, and max out at five weeks vacation after year 5 and beyond.
11. Provide
cross training. Employees who
learn what others do usually want to aspire to learn more and train
harder. It takes time to learn new
skills, which means they will stay with the company for quite some time.
12. Inspire
employee feedback. An employee who
is afraid to share ideas and concerns is more likely to explode with bottled up
emotions, and then look elsewhere for a job.
There will be employees who are quiet and seem content, but inside they
are fired up. They do not say anything
because they are afraid of retribution.
Encourage openness as described throughout this course.
13. Parity
amongst departments. If one
department is getting all of the perks and recognition, and the other
departments are ignored, you will have some disgruntled employees. First off, don’t let the ignored department
be yours. Second, make it a point that
fairness and equality is established.
You might need to explain that certain department’s function differently
when it comes to commission and perks.
For example, the sales department gets paid by commission, and might get
a better reward than you can give to your staff as customer service
manager. Your job as customer service
manager is to make sure your staff is aware that if sales do not sell, they do
not get paid. The trade off between a
steady paycheck that your staff receives, and the possibility of a great reward
that sales might receive, should offset one another.
14. Do not rule
by intimidation. When people
feel intimidated and threatened by you, you might achieve short-term gain, but
the employee will leave the moment an opportunity presents itself.
15. Keep to your
commitments. People do not trust a
boss who is all talk with no substance, thus will want to leave. Always follow up no matter what the
circumstance. Always keep to the
meeting you have scheduled, the events you have planned, or the promises that
you made. Even if you give information
that the employee does not want to hear, the fact that you respected their idea
enough to follow up will earn you respect.
When they respect you, they will not want to leave you.
16. Make sure
they feel like they are part of the “in crowd.” Treat your employees like they are special
and that working for you is cool. They
should feel they are part of a team that is looked at as “the best of the best”
with respect, and even awe.
Your goal is
to make it to where there is no reason for your key employees to leave other
than that of a brand new experience or relocating. There’s not too much you can do about that. The chances of high retention are also
higher when you hire the best as described throughout this lesson. This is just another reason why hiring
someone with a good attitude who shows integrity is such a good thing to do.
Key employee retention is extremely
crucial to your department and the company’s success. Retaining your best employees ensures a solid future along with
customer satisfaction and higher sales no matter what kind of department you
run.
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