Employee Retention
My editor John Murray recently sent me article on the MSNBC website that talked about employee retention in an uptick market. Now that companies are finding (rightly or wrongly) that the worst of the economic contraction is behind them (which I’m not going to debate), they’ve found that some employees who were waiting out the recession in a safe harbor are now jumping ship.
Instead of reinventing the wheel in terms of the article, I’ll do my own take on how to retain employees in a small business. In any business, large or small- employees are the engine of the company. While no one is irreplaceable, replacing even temporary part timers comes at a cost.
Retention vs Replacement
It makes cost and operations sense to retain current employees rather than replace them. Recruiting a new face creates uncertainty. Will he or she upset the apple cart in the department? Will they jive with the company? Are they reliable? Properly training a new face represents a period where the person is a cash drain for the company while they get up to speed. Even with related experience, every employee has some getting their heads around the processes of the new company.
If you have a current employee whose performance is south of legendary, it might be worth your while to take more of a chance on them if they largely fit the culture of the company.
First you have to evaluate frankly if the trouble is skill based on attitudinal based- that’s not to say that the two are exclusive, and if the two usually impact each other.
Remotivate a current employee
Sit down with them and tell them you’re not happy with their performance, but you’re not giving up on them. You want to help them, and ask if they’re game too. This is crucial that they must make the decision for themselves to bring their performance back up. It is also crucial that you hold up your side of the bargain and try to figure out how the person can become more of a revenue source than a drain.
If they happen to be bored, challenge them with new tasks in addition to their old ones to spice things up again. If they are marginalized from the project- in they are losing perspective from the whole project because all they do is one small little piece- have them sit in on more project meetings to see how their tasks integrate holistically.
If they are honestly undertrained in an aspect of their job or a task- retrain them on that particular task without judgment or criticism. People can forget best procedures when doing a task day in day out.
Recruit a new employee
While it’s all well and good to have related skills, you also have to keep culture in mind. If they come from a large bank, and you have a small software company- chances are they’re going to go through a little culture shock. There are skills and attributes that allow people to deal with culture shock better- it’s called EQ (Emotional Quotient), and it basically represents how self aware people are their ‘people skills’. The more people skills the person has, the easier it will probably be for them to adapt to new environments and new cultures. A huge aspect of that is self-awareness, so when interviewing a candidate that will be moving from a significantly different culture than yours- ask attitudinal based questions that will indicate some level of awareness they possess. Try to keep in mind- you can always train someone on the right skills for the job- you can’t train culture.
Or you could of course just stick to bringing people on board who are from companies with similar cultures to your own.
Don’t get me wrong- recruiting new new blood and new perspective will provide youthful energy and passion into your projects and allow them to take into new areas that you couldn’t before. It comes at the price of rookie mistakes, but mixing old hats in with the newbies could allow you to gleam the best of both worlds out of the project (although it could also bring out the worst aspects of both).
Firing
That’s an interesting and important enough blog that it will be covered in a future blog all on it’s own.
In Conclusion – employee attrition is normal, natural and healthy. Keep an eye on you employee attrition rates, and be aware of the industry standard. If your rates are unreasonably above industry standard, chances are you should do some reflection on your management style, as the problem might be you.
Thanks to my editor John Murray who insists on all of the blame and none of the glory.
Instead of reinventing the wheel in terms of the article, I’ll do my own take on how to retain employees in a small business. In any business, large or small- employees are the engine of the company. While no one is irreplaceable, replacing even temporary part timers comes at a cost.
Retention vs Replacement
It makes cost and operations sense to retain current employees rather than replace them. Recruiting a new face creates uncertainty. Will he or she upset the apple cart in the department? Will they jive with the company? Are they reliable? Properly training a new face represents a period where the person is a cash drain for the company while they get up to speed. Even with related experience, every employee has some getting their heads around the processes of the new company.
If you have a current employee whose performance is south of legendary, it might be worth your while to take more of a chance on them if they largely fit the culture of the company.
First you have to evaluate frankly if the trouble is skill based on attitudinal based- that’s not to say that the two are exclusive, and if the two usually impact each other.
Remotivate a current employee
Sit down with them and tell them you’re not happy with their performance, but you’re not giving up on them. You want to help them, and ask if they’re game too. This is crucial that they must make the decision for themselves to bring their performance back up. It is also crucial that you hold up your side of the bargain and try to figure out how the person can become more of a revenue source than a drain.
If they happen to be bored, challenge them with new tasks in addition to their old ones to spice things up again. If they are marginalized from the project- in they are losing perspective from the whole project because all they do is one small little piece- have them sit in on more project meetings to see how their tasks integrate holistically.
If they are honestly undertrained in an aspect of their job or a task- retrain them on that particular task without judgment or criticism. People can forget best procedures when doing a task day in day out.
Recruit a new employee
While it’s all well and good to have related skills, you also have to keep culture in mind. If they come from a large bank, and you have a small software company- chances are they’re going to go through a little culture shock. There are skills and attributes that allow people to deal with culture shock better- it’s called EQ (Emotional Quotient), and it basically represents how self aware people are their ‘people skills’. The more people skills the person has, the easier it will probably be for them to adapt to new environments and new cultures. A huge aspect of that is self-awareness, so when interviewing a candidate that will be moving from a significantly different culture than yours- ask attitudinal based questions that will indicate some level of awareness they possess. Try to keep in mind- you can always train someone on the right skills for the job- you can’t train culture.
Or you could of course just stick to bringing people on board who are from companies with similar cultures to your own.
Don’t get me wrong- recruiting new new blood and new perspective will provide youthful energy and passion into your projects and allow them to take into new areas that you couldn’t before. It comes at the price of rookie mistakes, but mixing old hats in with the newbies could allow you to gleam the best of both worlds out of the project (although it could also bring out the worst aspects of both).
Firing
That’s an interesting and important enough blog that it will be covered in a future blog all on it’s own.
In Conclusion – employee attrition is normal, natural and healthy. Keep an eye on you employee attrition rates, and be aware of the industry standard. If your rates are unreasonably above industry standard, chances are you should do some reflection on your management style, as the problem might be you.
Thanks to my editor John Murray who insists on all of the blame and none of the glory.
posted by Mike at 12/03/2009 08:13:00 p.m.
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