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Employee Retention Strategies for a High Performance Environment
All high performance environments share a
serious devotion to results.
They’re competitive, stressful workplaces
where mediocrity is disdained and failure intolerable. Moreover, individuals
who thrive in these environments tend to be “A” players with intense ambition.
And they are always on the lookout for greener pastures.
How can high-performing employers better
retain these critical employees?
The challenge is often how companies approach
retention — reactively. Retention issues are ignored until the company suspects
an employee might bail, at which point it’s addressed by offering the employee
some kind of enticement to stay, and then it’s back to business as usual.
This approach might work in the short-run, but
does nothing to cultivate longer-term loyalty.
A better approach is to address retention
proactively, as a strategic issue. I recently connected with two thought
leaders in talent management strategy to discuss how to do this in high
performance environments. Based on our conversation, here are five things any
organization can do to proactively combat turnover.
1. Hire retainable
employees
The pressure’s on from Day One in a high
performance environment. While some thrive under pressure, others will falter.
Elissa Tucker, Human Capital Management Knowledge Specialist atAPQC, says the first thing leading organizations
are doing to curtail this type of turnover is a focus on “hiring retainable
employees.”
While there are some
obvious indicators of a candidates’ ability to deliver consistently (e.g. three
to five years’ tenure in a similar role), there are other signals that can
provide insight in your sourcing and screening.”
Tucker suggests working with your managers and
top performers to identify what backgrounds, skills or personality
characteristics your retainable employees have in common.
2. Plan careers, don’t
fill roles
It’s easy to focus on the near-term when
managing people in a high performance environment. You bring in “A” players
with the expectation that they’ll succeed in the role for which you’ve hired
them — and unrealistically assume they will stay in that role forever. Your top
performers are thinking about their career, and you should be too.
“Best-practice organizations work to help
individuals plan to stay with the organization — to plan their careers with the
organization,” says Tucker. The key is to guide your employees in mapping
out how they can attain their career goals within your company.
For example: If a top salesperson sees her
current role as a rung in the ladder up to senior management, outline some
long-term goals that will get her there. If another is just in it for the
money, keep him in challenging roles that will reward him for working hard and
allow him to play hard.
3. Make retention
personal
Every employee is motivated by different
things, and retention strategies thus need to be tailored down to the
individual level.
Steve Miranda, Managing Director of the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, Cornell University
ILR School, says, “The key
phrase is specialized efforts.” Successful organizations, he says, don’t view
retention initiatives as ‘one size fits all.’ Instead, they’re making retention
strategies personal. How? By simply asking, “What motivates you?”
You may be surprised to find that monetary
incentives are low on the list of responses you get. These days, “A” players
are more concerned with challenging work, personal and professional growth
opportunities, work/life balance, and workplace flexibility.
4. Get to the heart of
underperformance
Let’s face it: Underperformance happens, but you
don’t want to lose employees who were previously strong performers. If you
notice a drop in performance, Miranda advises against writing them off without
first getting to the heart of the issue.
In my conversation with Miranda, we broke
underperformance down into a few root causes:
· Skill and competency issues often come up when
someone’s been promoted into a role they weren’t quite ready for. Fortunately these can be addressed with
coaching and training–and usually for a fraction of the cost of replacing an
employee.
· Behavioral issues are usually more difficult. “If it’s a behavior issue,” Miranda says
“identify the source of the issue to get an idea of whether it’s something
worth investing the time and effort in.”
· Personal issues are a leading cause of burnout
among top performers. Things come up
(divorce, health issues, mortgage issues, etc.), and can
distract employees from their work and affect their ability to deliver. In
these cases, a little support and flexibility will go a long way toward cultivating
loyalty.
You may uncover trends in underperformance
that you can use to your benefit. Are employees bored with the work? Are people
burning out after six months? This kind of feedback is vital to the refined
people process that supports success and curtails turnover.
5. Invest in your line
managers
“Employees don’t quit jobs,” says Miranda.
“They quit managers.” He estimates that 80 percent of turnover is driven by the
environment a manager creates for an employee (compared to 20 percent resulting
from issues with company culture). Because of this, any investments in training
and development for your line managers are well-spent.
The success of your retention strategies are
ultimately subject to your line managers’ ability to deliver on initiatives you
put in place. According to Tucker, “Whatever your company values, you have to
be sure your managers are executing on it. Help them help you reduce
turnover. Teach them how to empower employees to succeed and grow, rather than
just drive performance.”
It’s also critical to keep the line of
communication about careers wide open between employees and managers,
especially because career goals change over time. Build more opportunities for
employee check-ins (formal and informal) with managers. As Tucker points out,
“Individualized conversation needs to happen on a regular basis.”
What retention strategies have you seen work
in a high performance environment?
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