Column: Creating a retention culture

Source: Technology Digital

Date :9/25/2007 10:19:19 AM

Holding onto your valued workers doesn’t end with a competitive paycheck. It requires an environment of open communication, empowerment, and recognition.

By: Barbara Giamanco

While the U.S. economy may be growing at a rate of 3-4% each year, employers are seeing a corresponding decrease in the availability of bright, talented 35- to 45-year olds.

When you combine that with the idea that, at any given time 75% of the employees in a typical organization are at least passively searching for new jobs, you begin to see how a raging talent war could be just around the corner.

If corporations can’t stop the shrinking of the workforce, then HR executives and hiring managers are going to have to put greater focus on how to retain the talented individuals they have already employed.

According to Paul Glen, author of Leading Geeks: How to Manage and Lead People Who Deliver Technology, there are two forces at work in employee

retention: engagement and coercion.

When employees are emotionally connected to their work, they are engaged. But when forces outside an employee’s control — such as policies and compliance — enter the picture, they either promote attachment to, or disengagement from, the company.

Building a retention culture begins with an understanding that talented, high performing people are the foundation that leads to sustainable success. Great people need great leaders to guide them; thus, the goal of every company should be to ensure that leadership is not only top notch, but developed in all areas of the organization.

Just a few short years ago a poll of U.S. employees of Randstad revealed that 86% of employees felt their happiness on the job depended on employers letting them know that they were valued.

Instantly, I wondered how well companies were performing in relation to this expressed employee need. Recent statistics still indicate that approximately 70% of people are actively or passively looking for other jobs. So, it’s fair to conclude that companies could do a much better job of letting their employees know they are valued.

It could be easy to point the finger at employers and assume that they don’t care about their people. But we probably ought to look more closely at what employees mean when they say ‘their happiness depends on their employers letting them know that they are valued.’

One obvious way that employees feel valued is in the compensation they receive for the work that they do. But as one HR study after another shows, compensation is not THE driver of a strong retention culture.

Great compensation and benefits are important, but in the end, people choose to stay with their organizations for many more reasons than money.

Here are just a few:

Encourage ideas and contributions.

People want to make a contribution that is uniquely their own. This requires that management lead and coach, rather than trying to force people into a “one size fits all” approach to getting the work done.

Provide clear expectations.

Define the required results and then let good people do their work.

Within reasonably established boundaries, be willing to let people tap their own unique and creative ideas to come up with innovative solutions to their work.

Invest in career growth & development.

A commitment to offer ongoing training and development is an afterthought for far too many companies. Competition for talent is tight and it’s going to get tighter. When you invest in your people they are more engaged in their work and more likely to stay with your company.

Show appreciation often.

I recently read about a manager who actually believed that saying thank you for a job well done wasn’t necessary. In his mind, receiving a paycheck is all the thanks an employee needs.

That sort of attitude does one of two things: It drives people away altogether, or gives them incentive to do only the minimal required in their job.

Either way, the company suffers. If you want people to be engaged, care about the success of the business, and give more than the minimum they are expected to, say thank you — and sincerely mean it. If you don’t, someone else probably will.

That employees still reveal in surveys that they want to feel valued and mostly feel that they aren’t, suggests there is much work to be done on the retention front.

In the war for talent, companies that care about their people, invest in their development, set clear expectations, offer opportunities for increased responsibility and advancement, and say thank you for a job well done, are well on their way to creating a retention culture.