PART 3: Retaining your best employeesIn the first article of this series, we pulled back the curtains and looked at all the ways that turnover costs you money. In Part 2 we examined the revolving door of new hires with two key approaches, using more effective selection techniques and learning more about why people are leaving. If you followed my coaching (and ignored that pesky voice in your head that was telling you, "Who cares why s/he resigned, s/he wasn't a good fit anyway") and chose to get curious and ask questions, use that information to work on what creates long-lasting, sustainable elimination of turnover costs - Retaining your BEST employees! A LESSON FROM THE OG For several years I had the privilege of teaching the Organization Behavior course in the business school of McKendree University Louisville campus. I always included the story of the Pike's Place Fish Market when we talked about highly effective organizations and here's why. I honestly can't think of many jobs that I would dislike more than working as a fishmonger - the smell, the gore, the pre-dawn start to every workday, the hard labor of setting up the ice displays, and did I mention the smell. And yet, on the brink of bankruptcy, owner John Yokohama and his crew embraced a bold idea - to become world famous. What happened from there not only saved the company with
So what am I suggesting that you learn from this?
Grab your notebook; it's time to complete your final written assignment. By answering the following questions, you will have the ingredients you need to move from triage to healing and health:
Just like our bodies, a healthy organization is one that has harmony, balance, and functions optimally without creating stress on one or more systems. The goal of these questions is to generate thinking about what it looks like and feels like to be in a healthy state (vs. the turmoil of serial turnover). An honest assessment helps to identify changes that can be effected quickly to demonstrate commitment and build momentum. Remember to use the data from step two of the second part of this series, to help you focus your efforts. PART 2 of the high cost of turnoverIn the first article of this series, we pulled back the curtains and looked at all the ways that turnover costs you money. We used the analogy of suffering a severed femoral artery, and I promised you a comprehensive treatment plan to not just temporarily staunch the bleeding but to repair the damage with surgical accuracy and restore health to your staffing process. So let's begin with the most important step - the tourniquet. The purpose of a tourniquet is to slow the immediate and rapid loss of blood temporarily. In the context of business hiring, this is the new hire revolving door - people leave as quickly as new people are hired. Last June Fast Company magazine published a great quick read on why new employees leave within the first 90 days [link] in which they cited the following facts from research by Jobvite: Staggering when you add this 30% number to the cost calculation we covered in Part 1, right! Now add the additional multipliers of the currently low unemployment rate and the impact of employer review sites like Glassdoor where disappointed and grievous employees freely share their cautionary tales with other job seekers, and you can find yourself with a significant deficit in even attracting the caliber of talent you need. The reality is that in the current employment environment, for many positions and employees, the demand for talent is so great that there is no reason to stay in a job that doesn't feel like a great fit from the very start. Let's focus on how to have the most immediate impact on shutting down the new hire revolving door no matter the type or level of position in your company: Avoiding mismatched expectations & cultural fit. Step one, make sure that your hiring process follows these simple guidelines...
So grab your notebook and write your answers to assignment # 2:
ARE YOU READY TO GET STARTED? I have the skills and experience to help you get quick answers and craft custom solutions that will have a positive, lasting impact. More importantly, you can have a tailored solution at little to no more cost than purchasing a canned solution. Thanks for reading! Please leave your comments and questions below and check back for Part 3 of this series where we will explore how to improve the retention of seasoned employees. PART 1: Why turnover mattersMost employers intuitively know that employee turnover is costing them money, although few know how or have attempted to quantify the cost. A huge cost for most businesses is the stress, overwork, and dissatisfaction experienced by the remaining employees when someone leaves. Think about the mental and physical impact turnover has on your staff as they contemplate...
The smaller your business, the more difficult it can be to navigate turnover without creating dissatisfaction. Even if you take on much of the work as the owner, it means that you are distracted from your core responsibilities which can make you less effective in important tasks like communicating clearly with customers, employees, and vendors and providing clear direction to your remaining staff. Fixing critical business issues such as staunching the loss caused by serial turnover, requires a commitment to multiple actions. A great analogy is to think of serial turnover as a severed femoral artery. Although the first step is to place a tourniquet above the wound to prevent immediate death from bleeding out, this treatment alone is insufficient to sustain life. A patient with a severed artery must receive surgical treatment to repair the artery, followed by treatment of the wound to avoid infection and aid repair of the surrounding tissue. In this multi-part series, I will share with you my insights about how to craft your comprehensive treatment plan. We will explore the causes of serial turnover, ways to eliminate it, and how to think differently about managing your business during staff vacancies. In my experience, the answers are not complex but do require focused effort. Most importantly, you will learn why there are no short cuts or magic bullets and why actions such as improving selection tools and processes are only tourniquets and therefore insufficient to restore health to your business. Are you ready to get started? Here's your first assignment. Please grab a notebook and write your answers to the following questions:
Check back in a couple of days for the next part in this series. Feel free to post comments or questions below or contact me directly if you would like to have a personalized conversation to jump start your EXTRAORDINARY year.
I ditched my bad relationship with new year's resolutions that I never keep many years ago, but after a tough 2018 for me and my family, I learned something important that gives you the intense, positive, unabashedly hopeful moment of midnight New Year's anytime and without the remorse of "falling off the wagon", the reset button (learn more). As my children continue their march toward young adulthood, my focus is shifting to putting my time back into my first love, my career. In 2017 I celebrated the 10 year anniversary of my consulting practice and officially shifted from being a freelance OD consultant, to a business owner. I launched my website and started engaging in more business development activities. I've learned many things along the way and am ready for a mini reset moment that includes these changes that I am excited to share with you [imagine drum roll here]:
There is a lot not changing with my mini reset and those things should not go unsaid:
So forget about New Year's resolutions. Are you ready to make 2019 an EXTRAORDINARY year? Let's connect! #Hello2019 #NewYearsResolution #smallbusiness #coaching #IgniteYourExtraordinary |
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