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.