Five Great Retention Strategies to Make Your Best Employees Want to Stay
It used to be that employers could correctly believe that they were in control of the employment game. They would advertise a job opening, receive dozens and perhaps hundreds of well qualified applicants, hire one, and know that person would never quit. Thankfully those days are long behind us. Our the economy and our workforce have changed, including the willingness and ability of employees to change jobs. So how does an employer make it really hard for its best employees to quit? Let me count the ways:
- Offer a flexible work schedule. Let employees have some control, within reason, over their work hours. Does everyone really need to show up at 8:30am and leave by 5:30pm? Would the world really come to an end if your star employee showed up at 7am and left at 4pm so that he can pick up the kids from daycare? If other employers aren't as flexible with his work hours, wouldn't that make him more likely to appreciate working for you and less likely to leave?
- Allow telecommuting. Do you see that box sitting on the desk? It is called a computer. Do you see that smaller box stapled to everyone's hip? It is called a cell phone. With those two nifty gadgets, you've got a portable office for just about every office worker in the land. Do you trust your employees? If so, what argument do you have for not allowing them to work at least part of the time from home? What if you were to allow some to work their mornings at home or one day a week? If they didn't have to sit in on the same meetings that you find to be so meaningless, wouldn't they be more productive? And wouldn't they be more likely to appreciate working for you and less likely to leave?
- Employ part-time employees. Some organizations view part-timers as a necessity, either because they don't receive benefits so therefore are cheaper or because those organizations have such unattractive jobs that few full-time employees are willing to work there. But what if your organization deliberately targeted highly skilled workers who only wanted to work part-time, such as Boomers who are retiring from the jobs they had to work at and are now accepting jobs that they want to work at? Wouldn't they be more likely to appreciate working for you and less likely to leave?
- Make your employees take vacations and you do the same. When was the last time you had a vacation? A real vacation? I can't remember the last time that I was truly away for more than three consecutive days. Are your employees the same? Sure, we're all busy and there is so much work to be done before we leave and then we get back. But isn't that the point? Shouldn't we make it a priority to prevent the need we all feel to get ahead in our work before we leave and then spend days or even weeks unburying ourselves after we get back? I've come to feel that it isn't worth the headache so I don't ever really get away. I work for an hour or two most vacation days and then relax the rest of the day. But wouldn't it be better for me, you, and our employees if we all really got away for a week, two weeks, or even more without having to do any work whatsoever? Wouldn't your employees be more likely to appreciate working for you and less likely to leave?
- Be flexible about retirement planning. Are there really organizations out there that still mandate retirement at age sixty-five? Are those organizations run by Beaver Cleaver's dad? Seriously folks, this isn't the 1950's. The Boomers are reaching retirement age and there aren't nearly enough Gen X'ers to replace them and the Gen Y'ers aren't yet experienced enough to accept the torch. Have you compared the vitality of a typical 65 year old today to that of a 65 year old 50 years ago? The cliche is that 65 is like yesterday's fifty. Don't believe it? Try. Try harder. Let your older, most experienced, and wisest employees stay. Heck, make them stay. Make your workplace such a joy for them to be around that they won't want to retire. Make them more likely to appreciate working for you and less likely to leave.
Very nice points of view but I do not understand why the paycheck is not mentioned.... 'cause in the present days you need money to survive and even more compared to the old days.