HOW RIGHT I AM

Yes, I am right. I am not being obnoxious, just proud of my research. Those of you who have been in my seminar on “Turning Around Turnover,” have heard me say what is backed up by some recent research by Monster.com and the Aberdeen Group. The study states you have to make employee retention a number one business priority. Sure, there are other business objectives, but without hiring and keeping the right people, everything else is meaningless.

Seventy percent of all HR managers surveyed state that employee retention is their primary concern. There is a higher demand for skilled workers, and many job openings for those workers that are looking to move on. At the same time, there is a shortage of entry level workers. The managers surveyed expect this challenge to continue for at least the next five years.

Strategies they recommend are: making supervisors accountable for retention by tying the turnover rate into their compensation; creating an environment that promotes work/life balance; offer training and development that grooms employee for promotions and management roles; identify and pro-actively manage top performers and promote from within (as I said stop spending so much time trying to change all the low performers, instead terminate them); develop a mentoring system; do employee surveys to monitor morale and make changes accordingly; and use exit interviews to find out why people leave.

Ethnic Slurs Can Cost Big Bucks

We were discussing how to deal with ethnic slurs in my recent seminar on Immigrant and Ethnic Workers.I shared this lawsuit with the group, and want to repeat it here. If you ignore ethnic slurs, it can cost you big bucks. A Denver building contractor ignored the problem brought to him by 10 Mexican workers who claimed they were hearing derogatory comments and ethnic slurs everyday. The group contacted the EEOC, stating their complaints were ignored and there was retaliation for the complaints. The contractor settled with the EEOC for $600,000 because he knew going to court would have cost even more.

Ignoring ethnic slurs is as absurd as ignoring sexual harassment. Retaliation is sheer lunacy. Train your managers to jump on these situations immediately. Train your employees to come forward with their complaints, and assure them there will be no retaliation against them. Let all employees know (through training) that harassment and ethnic slurs are immediate grounds for dismissal and you will stop it.