Retaining Good People

Whenever one of your good employees leaves to take a job somewhere else, you lose quite a lot:

• Their understanding of the mission and their knowledge of the unique ways your firm works
• Your investment in that person's training
• Their productive relationships with co-workers, clients, vendors and other constituencies

These invisible and rarely calculated costs may be far greater than the more obvious out-of-pocket expenses to recruit, screen, and recruit a suitable replacement.

To find out why your employees are rejecting your company you need to ask them about their decision as they are walking out the door. That conversation, usually held face to face before you give the employee his or her final paycheck, is called an “exit interview.”

Before handing-over that final paycheck, invite the employee to spend a few minutes with you to help you “get a better sense of what’s going on in the business.” Then, in a pleasant, conversational exchange, engage in a discussion that will reveal useful information about important issues that drive an employee's decision to stay or go:

q       Are the people you’ve hired expecting something (such as raises, advancement, learning opportunities, working conditions, etc.) that they were promised in your recruiting or hiring process that the company is not actually delivering?

q       Are the new hires unpleasantly surprised when they start their new job by something they were not told about in advance?

q       Was the person's manager unfair, unhelpful, or worse?

q       Are working conditions unacceptable?

q       Are the new hires adequately trained, supported, and given the proper tools to accomplish the work?

q       Are there some “irritation factors” that are driving people away? These could be parking problems, inconsistent hours, equipment breakdowns, even annoying co-workers.

q       Are performance expectations unreasonable?

q       Where are the quitters going? To similar jobs? For a significant difference in pay?

The Big Question

Here’s a very powerful question to ask in your exit interviews that may be the most revealing of all:

If money were not an issue, what would it take for you to stay (or return) to the job?

When you ask this potent question, do not suggest any answers. Just wait and listen.

If you sense hesitation on the part of the departing employee, assure him or her that you will hold whatever is said in the exit interview in confidence. Say something such as, “Maria, I have a problem here. We’re losing good people like you. I need to understand the real reason behind good people leaving this company. I really could use your help.”

If the problem is a rogue manager, the exiting employee may say, “Well, I don’t want to get anyone in trouble…” Assure her that she’s not “ratting” on anyone, that you need to know the truth no matter what it is.

Then listen very carefully. If you hear similar themes from several people, clearly, there's a problem. You need to solve it. Or you’ll continue losing people you’d rather keep.

To get lots of data in a short amount of time, call a representative sample of prior employees who departed over the past several weeks or months. In addition, seek input (through informal conversations, and perhaps formal surveys) of both your recent hires who are still with the company as well as your long time employees. Are they discontented, too?

The sooner you get your arms around the issues driving people away from your company, the sooner you will create a company that employees want to work for—for the long haul, happily.

Lead Well® helps organizations to improve measurable results by developing their current and future leaders. For more information, please contact us. By phone, toll-free in the USA: 1-888-LeadWell (532-3935), or 1-609-716-9490. By email, Info@LeadWell.com.

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Don Blohowiak, a management consultant and popular conference speaker, is the author of several business books. The executive director of the Lead Well® Institute in Princeton, NJ, he may be reached at http://www.LeadWell.com/.

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