Category: Onboarding

Why Employee Retention is Important – and How to Do it Right

It’s always important to have a good retention strategy in order to keep your best employees.

There are specific times to be particularly aware: when your company or industry growth slows, and when recruiters are aggressive (if your employees’ skill sets are in high demand).  When the company is doing well, people don’t tend to leave unless they are recruited. This happens at good companies when unemployment is very low.

If you don’t hold on to your A-players, you’ll be left with just the Bs (and maybe Cs), and that isn’t a recipe for success. A-players will always be in demand, and they will find good jobs in any economy. If you lose one or two, they are hard to find and expensive to replace.  If you don’t replace them, you could end up with what Steve Jobs once called the “Bozo Explosion.”

So how do you retain them?

  • Keep them engaged
  • Give them opportunity
  • Give them slightly better than typical compensation

There is a lot packed into those 3 bullets. For me, the goal was always to make them happy enough that they would not return a headhunter’s call if one reached out.  While some people are just curious, others will not waste their time if they are happy enough where they are.

What employees want more than a raise is:

  • To feel proud about what they do and be on a winning team
  • To be treated fairly and respected by their boss
  • To be heard and not micromanaged
  • To have a personal life and feel less stress
  • To see the incompetent (poor performers) get fired
  • To have job security

There is a lot of talk about employee engagement.  While an employee is more likely to return a recruiter’s call when not engaged, not being fully engaged is not the same as being unhappy.  As you can see from the list above, there is more to keeping an employee happy than just money.

Retention begins the first day they start at the company.  Poor on-boarding can start the employee off on the wrong foot, and this is common in small companies.  While showing a new person where the restroom and coffee are is important, enacting a development plan for the first 90 days is more important. Most people want to feel productive and valued, and providing goals for the first 90 days do just that.

An important key to keeping them engaged is to make sure they have a good boss.  That could be a project manager or people manager depending on the structure of the company. If the boss cares about the person and her career, you may be able to prevent the disengagement which affects about 70% of all employees. People don’t want monthly 1-on-1 meetings – they want more frequent, less formal chats on how they are doing.  Ask questions and give tips as needed or schedule more time as required.  Use this time to say they are doing a good job (if they are), because everyone likes a little pat on the back.

Poor performance and disengagement can happen even to workers who were highly valued at one time.  Jobs change and personal lived change.  It is important to first recognize the situation and then address it quickly.  If it lingers, it will likely get worse, and other workers will see it and wonder why it isn’t being addressed.  It will either cause others to act similarly, or it may push your A-players out the door.

To retain your best and keep the team performance high:  know your employees, challenge them professionally, recognize when something is wrong, and take appropriate action quickly.  Paying them slightly above market rate will help if you can do it, but the items above are the most important.

Hiring and Team Building with DISC

My “Aha” moment came in about 1995-96. Our 6 person management team sequestered ourselves for a day of “team building” after we took a Myers-Briggs assessment.  As we went around the group, many of us were similar “personality types,” but one person stood out as different. That person was the same one who always disagreed with the group, and had his own way of managing. The bulk of the group were ENTPs, and he was an ISTJ. It was then that the facilitator told us it was good that we were not of all the same type – because if we were, we would be blind to the collective weaknesses of the group.

Both DISC and MBTI have their origins in research in the 1920s or 30s, from different researchers, with DISC starting with Marston and MBTI with Jung.  Their initial goals were different, but there is some correlation. I will not go into detail here, but this is an approximate relationship:

D=EST/ENJ
I=ESF/ENP
S=ISF/INP
C=IST/INJ

I have found that DISC is more effective in helping you interact with others; it can provide clear guidance for adjusting how you speak to each other, and how to understand another easily to help a working relationship. I have not found an easy way to know someone else’s MBTI profile, but in contrast, what I call RapiDISC is a very easy way to narrow someone down to a quadrant in about 60 seconds.

Knowing one’s DISC style is similar to “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.” Once you know more about that person, you will understand her better and should have more effective interactions.

For hiring and managing a team this is invaluable. Once DISC styles are known, there are fewer misunderstandings because communication is clearer. Also, by knowing one’s natural strengths and weaknesses, one can be put in a position where she will excel and succeed rather than struggle. In Good to Great, Collins says that great companies get the right people in the company and get them in the right seats. DISC and related assessments help you do both.