Keeping Your Best Employees

In the current workforce era of The Great Resignation, employers are hyper-focused on recruiting, rightly so. They are also focused on employee retention and are trying to figure out new retention strategies. The 2022 Trends United States Job Market Report states that three out of four full-time employees are planning to quit their job in the next 12 months with pay being the number one reason. The report goes on to note that 87% of job seekers who are satisfied with their current employer’s health plans have come to expect significant additional benefits. So what steps can employers take to keep their best employees?

Many employers are increasing salaries to both hire and retain employees. Here are a few effective, low to no cost steps companies can take to work towards employee retention:

• Conduct stay interviews.
• Manage employees according to their drives and needs.
• Provide professional and leadership development.

Stay interviews

The opposite of an exit interview, stay interviews are a proactive way of retaining your best employees. They are conducted to help companies understand why employees stay and the reasons they might leave. Companies can take the feedback and create strategies in line with the feedback given, both good and bad. These interviews are most effective when they are given at the manager level, promoting an environment of trust by focusing on the employee and not the company (so much). According to this SHRM article, here are five key questions that should be asked:

• What do you look forward to each day when you commute to work? (For remote/hybrid workers, you could rephrase as, “…when you log into your computer?”)
• What are you learning here, and what do you want to learn?
• Why do you stay here?
• When is the last time you thought about leaving us, and what prompted it?
• What can I do to make your job better for you?

Some additional questions we recommend are:

• What do you like most about your job?
• What do you think of the company culture?
• What works well and what doesn’t work well here?
• Do you feel connected to your coworkers and the company?
• Do you feel a connection between your passions and the company’s mission?
• What are your aspirations with the company?

It is important that employees chosen to do these interviews understand they are confidential and will in no way be detrimental to them. Trust is vital.

Manage according to drives and needs

Managing every employee the same way is like expecting them all to wear the same size shoes to work every day and be comfortable in them. Everyone should be treated the way they want to be treated.

Gallup research shows that when employees know and use their strengths, they are more engaged (nearly six times more), have higher performance, and are much less likely to leave their company. These employees have what we call ‘discretionary effort’, meaning they look beyond just having to do their job by wanting to do their job and do it well.

How does this happen? Our team uses science to uncover a person’s drives and needs. When we know what drives a person, we can predict their needs and their behaviors. When managers know and understand how to treat their employees, their employees will be inspired to do their job well and become more engaged. CLG has the tools available that will allow you to develop communications and delivery methods tailored to the needs of your employees. Get started on this strategy today by contacting us.

Provide professional & leadership development

Professional and leadership development is not for just executives anymore – and it never should have been. Your company and every employee will benefit from the investment in professional and leadership development.

Organizations that have made a strategic investment in employee development, Gallup finds, report 11% greater profitability and are twice as likely to retain their employees.

Gallup goes on to note that development at work satisfies two of the five essential elements of wellbeing by fulfilling a person’s drive for career and social wellbeing. Having a sense of purpose makes people feel great about what they do at work and enriches their personal lives as well.

More numbers from Gallup state that nearly 9 out of 10 millennials say professional development or career growth opportunities are particularly important to them in a job with career growth opportunities being the number one reason people give for changing jobs. Investing in your employees creates connection and engagement and allows them to visualize their career paths with (hopefully) your company. CLG offers leadership, team, and individual development and coaching. You can get started on your next steps by contacting us.

Stay interviews, managing according to drives and needs, and professional & leadership development all provide low to no cost ways to keep your best employees. Stay interviews can be done entirely without any outside costs by simply following the steps above. CLG can help you with the rest. What are you waiting for? Contact us today!

-Melissa Spangler