Is it just a coincidence that the worst managers usually blame their employee turnover on pay? Not enough staff? HR recruits ineffective workers? That leaders see employees’ reasons for leaving as every possible one but themselves? I think not.
The Harvard Business Review has a reputation as the leading deep-thinking research publication for organizations to reach their highest performance levels. A recent report certainly meets that standard and provides one key retention instruction for executives of all industries.
Exit interviews are often constructed so poorly that the most common leave reason is “better opportunity”. How can HR possibly quantify what “better opportunity” means? Perhaps managers should be asking their current employees why they stay.
Choose any one of the hot current supervisory training programs and you’ll find they all hit the wall in day-to-day use due to a very easy-to-grasp reason; because we ask the attending supervisors to be reactive vs proactive, that “the next time this circumstance happens, do this”.
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.
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.
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.
Human Resources work is now, more than ever, in the bullseye of turnover, engagement, retention, and recruiting challenges that are being exacerbated by The Great Resignation with no end in sight. I know you accept this challenge, but do you have a plan for improving retention that you know you can count on to work today, tomorrow, and with whatever the future holds?