Companies that believe retention is based on pay, benefits, or any other traditional reason are dogs chasing their tails. They will never out-pay their competition for talent…but they will irritate and lose top performers by constantly raising starting pay without addressing pay compression for others.
This story is the genesis of my completely re-directing my career by taking one idea…how to cut turnover…and launching my second-half entrepreneurial work life.
Two things happened last Thursday that will juice anyone’s interest in cutting employee turnover…and both were about getting c-suite executives to support moving retention accountability out of HR to the frontline managers where it belongs.
For those of us who study workforce data and those who live with the results of workforce shortages, the question is, “Would a recession bring with it a silver lining by realigning our number of workers with our number of open jobs?”
The feedback from my SHRM22 Annual Conference concurrent session tells me participants were starving for real retention solutions, at a time when all U.S. companies were facing 11 million open jobs and 3.5% unemployment.
Jim Clifton is CEO of Gallup one of his book’s contains a most interesting subtitle that uses the phrase, “team leaders.” Jim’s use here is very purposeful, as he makes clear in the book, and from work we’ve done, I can tell you organizations that leverage team leaders cut turnover by greater than 30%.
It seems trite to say that supervisors who build trust will improve retention…more than the traditionally-considered solutions like pay, benefits, onboarding, training, time off, work from home, and everything else. It sounds too simple, too intangible, but it’s true.
The Predictive Index asked over 200 CEOs “Do you believe “The Great Resignation” is over?” Their responses were shocking and conflicted mightily with the conclusions of many respected economists.
PBS News released a new study last week and it reads like the same-old talk. Quit reasons include “young-people” rhetoric, reduction in hours or benefits, options to work remotely or for more flexible hours, relocation, lost their jobs, and of course the old standard, “better opportunity”. Here is a wake-up call regarding the real reasons employees are leaving.
How would your CEO rate employee turnover as a priority? “Very important” is easy to say…and easy to see. But the question is precisely how much does employee turnover impact every single aspect of our businesses? The answer to this question is critical because each organization determines how committed it is to cutting turnover.