Six Solution Steps to Retaining Employees

By Gregg Gregory

What's your organization's turnover or churn rate? Has it increased over the last 18 months? If you are like 40% of firms surveyed in the Monster Intelligence report developed by Monster Worldwide, the leading global online careers company you too have noticed a significant up tick in voluntary resignations.

In the same report by Monster Worldwide the survey shows that an astonishing 70% of Human Resource leaders indicate that workforce retention is now a primary concern for their business.

Why is this occurring? There really are several factors in this equation and it begins simply with the aging baby boomers. We have all read the news reports about how many boomers are turning 60 and that they are retiring at an astonishing rate. This is compounded by the rate at which employees are entering the workforce. Do you remember the time in history when the birth rate declined drastically? Well that time is now catching up to the workforce.

According to the Bureau of labor Statistics the United States native workforce growth rate is expected to slow to 0.06% between 2000 and 2050. Much of this is in fact due to the aging boomers, and the fact that the generation Xer's are not up to the same level as their retiring counterparts.

The question becomes over the coming years, how do companies lower the churn rate and retain the employees they want to retain? It is no longer a single approach to a single problem. This multifaceted problem requires a multifaceted approach to solve. One solution is to follow this Six Step Plan and work the plan over the coming years.

1) Develop the Community Spirit: Across the nation we are asking more of our employees and in many cases they are spending more time with those they work with than they are waking hours with their spouse, partners, or significant others. This means there are families at work as well as a family at home.

The community spirit simply means employees look out for each other and back each other up. When an employee is out sick or on an assignment others pick up the workload without being asked to do so. Of course this may involve a culture change in your organization and the results are proven to be powerful.

If community spirit is not present this usually means there is a lack of trust between employees and maybe even management. The community spirit begins with trust in each other and in management.

2) Set a Work life balance program in place: With the demands on the personal lives as mentioned above many employees will not push themselves over their limit as in years past. Why is this? Let's take a closer look at the ages of those we are likely talking about. In most cases we are talking about Generation X employees. Those born between 1964 and 1980. When you look at this generation, they are sometimes called the lazy generation, which could be nothing further from the truth. Generation X was known as the first generation of latch key children. This meant that they had to fend for themselves when they came home from school. Their parents were not around because they were out working longer hours and doing more. Consequently, they made a promise to themselves that they would not do this to their children.

3) Don't forget to Charge the Employee's Battery: A car has an alternator to charge the battery while it is running. Without an alternator the car would start once and while running the battery would eventually die and thus the engine may not start again.

Those companies successful in managing employee retention do this in a variety of ways which include outside company activities, holiday pot luck lunches etc. One powerful way is to bring in a professional speaker. Many organizations do not want to spend the money to bring is a "Motivational Speaker" because this type of motivation (battery charging) is considered too expensive.

What if you were able to bring in a speaker / trainer who has the ability to teach practical knowledge and information beneficial to your organization who also understands how to charge the batteries at the same time? The range of topics like this includes teambuilding, leadership, diversity, customer service training to name just a microscopic few. With this type of session, in most cases the cost per employee can be kept to a more manageable level.

4) Brand Your Employment: Most organizations understand the power behind branding for marketing purposes. They fail to understand the power behind branding from an employment experience. Think about what your organization does and develop a brand on why employees want to work there. The United States Army's most powerful brand "Be All You Can Be" was a recruiting promotion that exceeded all expectations.

5) Utilize the Exit Interview to Your Advantage: Even if everything is done correctly you will still loose people. In the exit interview the number one answer an employee gives when they leave is more money. If the person doing the exit interview digs a little deeper other factors will emerge. They may include shorter commute, better chance for advancement, more challenging etc. The cop out answer is more money and most of those doing the interview stop right there.

If you get money and you know you need to dig deeper the most effective way is to ask; "Besides money, is there anything else that lead you to this decision?" Once you have an answer then ask why that is important to them. If it is important to them most likely it's important to others as well. You will then want to ask, "Between X and money, which is the more important reason you have chosen to leave?" You will want to repeat this cycle a few times to get the hierarchy of their reasons. Some will give you one or two others may give you five or six reasons. And once you have the hierarchy you have something to work from for the future.

6) Hold All Leaders Accountable: This is where senior management needs to make the turnover rate in an organization over to the specific managers. They need to manage their own churn rate and this should be a portion of their performance evaluation.

Keep in mind that you will never get to a zero churn rate and if your industry averages 8 - 10% then anything in that range should be considered in meeting expectations. You can develop your organization's plan accordingly. Nothing will stop employees from leaving you if they really want to leave and sometimes it may be better if they do leave. Maybe they are not meant to be on your bus.

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