Retention is on everyone’s mind with the job-hopping world we now live in. I have to admit, if we see a candidate who has been locked in with a company for 10+ years, we start to wonder about their overall development. Today Kevin Wheeler offers an excellent article on the ERE website that deals with strategies to implement to improve employee retention.
Money Won’t Hold Them starts with a quick history lesson on how we got here:
But somewhere in the early 1980s, things began to change. The first crack came with the advent of the 401(k) and (b) plans that freed employees from the corporate retirement programs. The 401 programs are, in effect, portable pensions. In effect, you take your accumulated savings and add to them somewhere else.
The pension fund is toast for we Gen Xers and younger. Workers now freed from a loyalty-inducing pension plan now look for opportunities more freely.
I often hear managers, CEOs, and supervisors promising this and that and making speeches about how committed they are to their workers.
When it comes time to allow workers some say in their work, or the opportunity to transfer to another department, or the chance to try something new, they just as often hesitate. Words can take on many meanings and can be twisted to fit any occasion. Deeds speak for themselves.
We’ve seen that approach all too often. I think he is spot on in that commentary.
Finally, he provides 6 suggestions for improving retention that are must reads. I’ll pull a couple of pieces from the article as a tease:
4. Pay at market rates or more. Don’t think that your benefits or loyalty will keep employees happy. Err on the side of generosity when you offer pay increases and never let pay be an excuse for an employee leaving. Pay is never the real reason people leave a firm, but it sure makes a great excuse for employees. Most organizations can’t defend themselves on this issue because they don’t pay that well.
6. Remember that we have entered a time when the employees are in charge. They can cripple your success and they know exactly how. They own the tools of production, and management needs to understand that the best companies, those that are most financially successful, have employees who enjoy “just enough” management and a lot of freedom. Today’s employees are better educated, more independent, less afraid, more secure, and far more entrepreneurial than those of even 10 years ago. This means that HR policies and management styles have to radically change.
As they say, read the entire thing.