Keep Your Best People
By Jay Forte, Humanetrics, LLC
Published in Executive Excellence, April 2003
You recruited well, got the right person in for the job and now you are faced with the statistic that says that 22% of high value employees often think of quitting, 20% of those same employees would leave for a similar position and 13% of them are actively looking for a new job – right now - or least as soon as the economy recovers. If our success as a business is tied to the performance of our employees, we need our high value employees to stay with us. What encourages a high value employee to consider looking for a new employer? What do millennial employees want that seems so hard to get that they are willing to change jobs at the drop of a hat.
What is missing is employee engagement – that connection of the employee to his/her job, that feeling important and critical to the success of the organization. Without employee engagement, the workplace turns into a swinging door with employees starting and stopping as often as the weather changes. And an inconsistent workforce can single handedly undermine the success of any business.
We first need to identify the critical role that each employee has on our business. We know that our people equal our profits. Our employees have the ability to encourage or discourage our business, with their level of service, creativity and innovation in business solutions, control over costs and generation of new business. We depend on our employees being fully engaged in the workplace – using all the skills and talents they have to grow and improve our business. Over half of employees polled indicated that they commit just enough effort to work to insure that they do not get fired. If we pay for the creative and innovative thoughts, the focused brainpower of our employees, then in most cases we are not getting what we pay for.
The reason to first look at this is perspective. If we understand the value of our employee (how important they are to our success), we will then commit the energy and effort to provide value for them. In other words, if they are truly important to us, then we will get to know them and insure that they get what they want and need in the workplace. When we care about the people in our lives – spouses, children, parents – we work harder to insure that they have what they need.
The concern and care of each employee must have great importance to the manager. The manager has a great ability of impacting the way an employee feels about his work environment. In fact, it is said that people quit people before they quit companies. That means that employees are generally first dissatisfied with their manager and the way the manager deals with the employees, before they find fault with the company. Many managers have not changed with the times to accommodate the new attitudes and realities of the current generations and new work perspectives. Many managers have continued to use old and ineffective approaches to dealing with employees that consistently yield poor results. What is needed is a new perspective in dealing with our new workforce – a millennial workforce.
Each employee is a product of their collective (work and life) experiences and the influences of their generations. Each employee has distinct talents and needs. Each employee has specific expectations and requirements of work. And the most significant thing the millennial manager can do is to understand this and use it attract and to keep the best employees.
Most companies create standard jobs and fit employees into them – hoping for a match of talents. Rarely are employee interests ever considered. The single greatest thing that a manager can do to keep the best employees is to understand each one – understand their needs, wants, goals, interests and talents – and then find some way of blending these into their job requirements. There is certainly no expectation to create custom jobs for each employee – but to “customize” the job – to include more of what each employee needs and can bring to the job – will be the way to keep the best employee.
The most successful way to approach this engagement process is a regular development meeting with each employee. At that time, the manager confirms his understanding of the employee – what things have changed in the employee’s personal life, professional ambitions or interests. Combining this information with the manager’s understanding of the needs of the business, starts to identify where both areas intersect. These intersections become the areas that, when included in the employee’s responsibilities, affect the employee’s level of commitment and engagement. When you give an employee something that he loves to do as part of his job, it improves his outlook in all other aspects of his job. In many cases, the manger’s effort to combine what employees like to do along with their current position responsibilities, shows the employee that he is thought of and cared for – this can be very engaging.
Employees have clearly said that they would be glad to commit to a company with greater loyalty and greater contribution – if the workplace environment responded in kind. That means when the workplace looks to match the employee’s talents with its business needs, and create responsibilities that also address employee needs and talents, employees will voluntarily raise their level of performance and effort. This seems to be the most direct thing we can do to offset the “free agent” mentality that we find so common place in the millennial workplace.
Humanetrics LLC. All rights reserved 2007.