Accountability: The Top Word
The lesson we have learned is the same one those attendees in Nashville told me, that accountability doesn’t come easy…or naturally in many organizations.
Stay Interviews Can’t Save Everyone, But Who Can They Save?
A recent Forbes article told the sorry story of a manager losing a top employee out of the blue. One of those “everything seemed OK and then he quit” examples every manager has endured. I have to wonder how effectively the manager in our story asked about the employee’s interests and needs.
See If You Agree: Stay Interviews Represent the Third Type of Question
Stay Interviews cut turnover and improve engagement because they drive supervisors to talk with their employees about work issues that matter to each individual employee. And sometimes about non-work issues that matter, too.
Take 3 Steps…Literally…To Fix Turnover and Engagement
Wherever you are right now, please do the following: 1. Stand up 2. Take 3 steps to your right 3. Tell yourself the top 5 things your company is doing to improve retention and engagement 4. Move back to your…
Yes, HR, You Were Always Right: You Cannot Solve Turnover By Yourself
800 hands immediately shot up in the air. This was the scene at the SHRM Annual Conference in Chicago last month, when I addressed a large crowd on “Cutting Turnover by 40% and More”. When I said “Raise your hand…
Stay Interviews, Probing, & “We Need More Staff”
Some managers give a knee-jerk twinge when asked to conduct Stay Interviews, to meet with their individual employees to learn how to make their jobs better. They instinctively fear a rebound response of something they can’t control like pay, promotions,…
Hats, Client Focus, and Employee Retention
I’m flying home from delivering a keynote address on employee retention to executives of Reser’s Fine Foods in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon. After the address one of the group gave me a Reser’s hat, the baseball kind. I’ve never…
The Link Between Biology and Employee Turnover
I was a strong high school student but faked my way through the sciences. While decades ago, my memory of walking into sophomore biology class is frighteningly clear, seeing a foreign-looking five-syllable, science-like word on the board, followed by its…
Employee Retention, Engagement, & Pinning Tails on Donkeys
About 20% of the executives we talk with say something like this: “We understand why you want our leaders to have retention goals, but that’s difficult here because our employees report to more than one supervisor.” The background is this…
Can Washington Legislation Make Turnover Even Worse?
I can’t think of a time when decisions made in Washington have so much impact on whether your employees stay or leave. Three areas of legislation come to mind that will likely make employee turnover even worse than it is…