Connecting Dots Between Benefits, Employee Turnover, & Netflix

Richie Hartman is my go-to source for employee benefits updates, serving as a NYC- based business strategist for global employee benefits company Marsh & McLennan. Last week Richie sent me an article titled Business Owners Revisiting Employee Benefits to Improve Retention.[i]

The article’s opening sentence reads, “With employee turnover climbing for small businesses, more employers are taking steps to boost retention and see employee benefits as a key to their success, according to new survey results.” The article goes on the name the most popular employee benefits that companies are using to slow turnover which include life/disability/health insurance and 401(k)s.

What the article does not address is how important are any employee benefits for retaining your top performers. While the survey tells which benefits companies are beefing up to cut turnover, there is no mention and no evidence that employees would turn down another job offer because of benefits alone. In fact, I’ve never seen an article that says that, or more importantly a controlled study that highlights that benefits cause employees to stay.

There is a joke line and a serious line coming next. The joke line is when someone asks over dinner how was your day dear, no one says, “My day was OK but I sure wish we had pet insurance”. And the serious line is when a client asks which benefit will cut turnover, I sometimes say, “Pay off their student loans in exchange for a couple years of work”. Young people who are sitting on $30,000+ of student debt might stay under any conditions for debt relief, though their engagement cannot be guaranteed. And most companies could never afford that type of benefit.

The point is that anyone who is selling anything related to your employees will tell you they can cut turnover, especially now when turnover is about to ratchet up in record time. I’ve told the story here before about the two global consulting firms who I asked for employee retention help to prove this point, where the first said “Everyone leaves because of no development” and the second said “Everyone leaves because of pay”.

But alas, the #1 reason employees stay or leave, or engage or disengage, is how much they trust their boss. Whatever comes in second, it’s not employee benefits. You need to offer employee benefits because you couldn’t hire anyone if you didn’t, but no employee has ever said, “I love working here, my boss and the people are great, but healthcare premiums are a couple bucks lower down the street.”

Here’s the Netflix connection. We learned a new trick at home this past weekend, that when we turned on the captions the shows got better. Besides clearing up any jumbled dialogue, we paid more attention to the notations about background noises like crowds buzzing, birds chirping, traffic flowing…all inserted by the director to enrich the story. The same is true with the notes describing the background music, sounds we might not have focused on before but now we do.

Background notations, though, will always remain in the background…and will never compete with the primary story line, the continuously-developing plot, and the stars of the show.

And the stars of your must-cut-turnover show are your first line supervisors. Pause for 60 seconds and list the top 5 things you are doing to improve employee retention, disciplining yourself to be truthful. Anything you write that is NOT about improving your supervisors is steering you away from your goal. If you write increase pay, implement a recognition program, do exit surveys, improve…well…benefits, then you are way off track. Counting how many hours and how much money you are investing in these “solutions” will just make you feel worse.

This 2-minute video will tell you the RIGHT answer, applied by scores of companies to cut turnover 30% and more: https://c-suiteanalytics.com/solutions/comprehensive-turnover-solution/

Let me close with a free offer. If you are an HR professional burdened by your executive team to implement more employee programs or better benefits to cut turnover, I’ll be glad to visit with them virtually to tell them that your leaders should be held accountable instead. No charge. Richie Hartman’s job is to sell employee benefits and even he knows first line leaders…and only first line leaders can cut employee turnover.

Dick Finnegan is SHRM’s top-selling author and top-rated webcast presenter. Please email your comments to DFinnegan@C-SuiteAnalytics.com.  Contact Dick to discuss how we can help you retain your valuable employees.  You are also welcome to forward this blog to anyone you believe would find it helpful.

[i] https://www.napa-net.org/news-info/daily-news/business-owners-revisiting-employee-benefits-improve-retention?utm_medium=email&utm_source=getresponse&utm_content=Business+Owners+Revisiting+Employee+Benefits+to+Improve+Retention&utm_campaign=