How can we attract and retain high quality employees?
How can we leverage employee competencies -- both the "old pros" and newly acquired talent -- to attract and retain customers?
The evidence that "people issues" influence profit is hard to refute. Just about every piece of research conducted over the last 10 years has come to this conclusion: Organizations with leaders who treat people with respect, use their people's skills wisely, and have effective systems to manage performance, reward recognition, and develop employees, are likely to retain committed employees who are willing to go the extra mile for customers. Employee retention and commitment leads to higher customer retention, higher productivity, increased quality, and continuous improvement.
Companies that do not do well on people issues experience high employee turnover, psychological withdrawal, lack of customer focus, and poorly motivated employees. These are customer service and high-performance killers.
What happens when key talent leaves?
- Critical knowledge and intellectual capital goes out the door
- Customer relationships can suffer due to contact continuity disruptions and inexperienced backups
- Inefficiencies occur due to process disruptions or knowledge gaps
- Company resources are redirected from growth to replacing losses
The costs of losing key talent are high. When key people leave, all their ideas for improvement, growth and development leave with them. This is an enormous opportunity cost. Work is typically interrupted while new people are brought in, trained, and brought up to speed. Quality is put at risk.
Financially, employee turnover costs vary widely, and include factors such as recruiting and selection screening, training, productivity losses, triggered losses of co-workers, and customer losses. Conservatively, the cost to you is tens of thousands of dollars. Most likely, the cost is in triple digits! And here is the real bad news: Every dollar spent replacing an employee is a dollar taken away from investing in the growth of the company.
Keep this central fact in mind: Many of the factors which influence turnover also affect teamwork and productivity. The ability to focus efforts on common goals, to innovate, communicate effectively and create productive synergies are all affected by the same drivers that affect retention. It is no surprise that companies which attend to critical people issues in a balanced and effective fashion tend to have better business performance and sustainable results!
Here's what smart companies do: They maximize the value of their money and invest in preventing loss of key talent, rather than paying for its effects. They go beyond the usual "bring your pets to work" bromides and focus not only on individual behavior change but change within the organization's performance system. And, they use measurement to bring focus and rigor to their efforts.
Metrus Group has spent years dealing with the issues that affect both talent loss and business results. We are able to craft targeted, company-specific solutions based on a wide variety of tools and methodologies that change both performance systems and behaviors. We diagnose, design solutions, and help you implement them.
The following articles are available at our Recommended Reading page:
- Strategic Employee Surveys: People Measures That Make a Difference by Brian S. Morgan and William A. Schiemann, Journal of Strategic Performance Measurement
- Measuring People and Performance: Closing the Gaps by Brian S. Morgan and William A. Schiemann, Quality Progress
We also recommend:
- Strategic Surveys: Linking People to Business Strategies, by Brian S. Morgan and William A. Schiemann, in Getting Action from Organizational Surveys: New Concepts, Technologies and Applications - Click to Read Excerpt
Our Diagnostic Services get to the root of the problem -- what the real drivers are. Some of those services are:
- Talent Radar: Evaluation of trends, events and employee attitudes that can serve as indicators of potential talent losses. [Contact me.]
- Discover Root Causes: Diagnostic surveys, focus groups, and interviews to pinpoint root causes of regrettable losses. Our analysis will help you determine which issues or drivers will create the greatest leverage for retention. [Contact me.]
- Continuous Tracking: Pulse surveys to monitor the root causes of talent loss and prevent problems from expanding. [Contact me.]
- Cost Analyses that identify the real cost and impact of employee talent loss. [Contact me.]
- Executive coaching and workshops to help supervisors and managers change behaviors and styles that drive talent out.
- Coaching and workshops on how to attract better talent with higher hit rates.
Our Solutions Design is based on years of experience by talented experts. Metrus Group's solutions address:
- Incentives: Realignment of reward and recognition systems when they are root causes of talent loss.
- Job Design: Some low job structures drive employees out because of conflicting demands, overload, stressors, challenge, and skill development opportunities.
- Supervision: Employees need and want coaches who can help them achieve performance goals, provide feedback, and channel their energy in productive directions.
- Career Growth: Employees often leave an organization because of unclear career paths or skill development opportunities.
- Values: Surprisingly, many departures are related to values that are not in sync between employee, manager, and senior leadership.
- Communications are often a key culprit as we learn in interviews and focus groups. Too often, misunderstandings that were easily fixed send employees packing.
- Resources: One of the biggest frustrations for employees is not having adequate tools, information, and resources to serve their customers well.
- Training: Other employees leave because they have not acquired adequate skills to perform their job well.