Imagine your company is a professional football team.
If there were weaknesses, you’d strengthen them! You would improve your offense, strengthen your defensive line and do what it takes to keep your star athletes and win in the Super Bowl!
Corporations spend up to 30% of their overall cost due to their inability to retain good employees. The effects of losing great employees should be a real warning sign to corporations that change is needed. These costs include:
- Looking for new talent
- Training new employees
- Up to a 6-month lag time getting the new employee up 100% productivity level
Are you voted “One of the Best places to work?”
If you are not, and you are losing good people, you need to ask better questions like, “Why do you want to leave us? Did we do something wrong?” Learn from the exiting employee, and apply the lessons learned, or become a sinking ship. Change is in the air with a rebounding economy and corporations need to understand the great value of employee retention.
Company’s voted ‘best places to work’, are also reaping great profits because they are not losing their All-Stars. These companies place great value on employees and make them feel part of that winning team.
Here are five tips to improve employee retention:
1. Share Core Values: Openly communicate and follow your company core values. Post your company core values through internal monthly newsletters, intranet, and company meetings. When the whole company follows its core values it means everyone in playing on the same team. This reinforces a team environment.
2. Communication holds the Key: Senior leaders and managers should be offensive coaches at all times. A great coach is someone who encourages input from their employees. When employees can share their ideas, they feel like they can help the company, and foster employee engagement.
3. Entitlement Disaster: Ego-based management has proven to cause more harm to a company as it fosters an environment that managers are more important than employees. Employees are always the most valuable asset to any company. “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur.” – Nelson Mandela
4. Play it Safe: When the company shows signs of instability, like high turnover, employees don’t feel safe. Provide transparency, and engage employees when there may be changes in the company. Avoid confusion, and clearly outline expectations and responsibilities.
5. Accountability Empowers: Employees love to understand the company playbook so outlining what the rules, the expectations, and the goals are essential components of accountability. Employees usually want to excel in their job.