How To Retain People In A Competitive Market
By Barbara T. Ling

One of the most expensive human capital losses a business can have is high turnover. Companies can spend thousands of dollars in training new employees, bringing them up to speed in cutting edge new technologies, and providing them with personalized resources to do their job, only to see these professionals leave for a new opportunity.

Boom! Enough money to send you and your family on a first-class trip to Disneyworld walks out the door with that professional. How can you protect your company against these kinds of losses?

What, Me Worry?

It can cost your business far more than you might expect. You're not only losing the capital you've invested - you'll also have to pay your recruiters to locate another professional, invest in job board advertisements, possibly deal with decreased employee morale from their colleagues left behind, and pay for relocation in some cases, to name a few factors. To calculate the exact dollar figure, check out the turnover calculators How Much Does Your Employee Turnover Cost? from the University of Wisconsin and AdvantageHiring.

Obviously, good business sense dictates that keeping your quality professionals on the payroll as long as possible is a desirable goal. It might seem that with the economy currently moving slower than molasses going uphill on a cold winter morning, fear of losing a job decreases this concern - who would jeopardize their income at this uncertain time in the year?

From a business perspective, the previous is a very shortsighted attitude. Especially in today's economy, you want to ensure that your company's reputation for an excellent working environment spreads to the far corners of the job-seeking environment. This way, when unforeseen layoffs do occur among your competitors, these professionals turn to you for employment. And not only that - the company that actively implements retention techniques is the company that will decrease its turnover costs by a significant factor.

Combating Turnover Factors

What are some of the factors involved in high employee turnover? One of the biggest factors is dissatisfaction. But dissatisfaction with what? It's not simply, say, job requirements! Other factors can include:

Appreciation. It's been said that people will work for money, but they'll die for appreciation. And quite often, management is blind to the conflicts and concerns of the worker bees, those professionals who actually do the bottom-line work (research, development, programming and the like).

Have you ever been made aware of the corporate politic concerns that might exist within your organization? Testers who might feel credit for their achievements is being taken away by their manager or colleagues? Researchers who have to spend time accounting for their paperclip expenses while their work languishes in the lab? Sad to say, little things can often blossom into neutron-bomb-size explosions when they finally erupt.

It's a fact of life that virtually every company has professionals who climb to success via the backs of their colleagues. Such dysfunction, if not kept in check, can lead to your valued employees seeking elsewhere for positions where their skills are appreciated and their concerns addressed.

How can you ensure problems of this nature never escalate to the point of no return? Fostering a policy of open communication (with no fear of corporate retaliation) can be beneficial. Always ensure your employees know that if they feel their supervisor isn't hearing their issues, they can take it one level higher (and then one level higher than that if necessary). Don't assume this is common knowledge within your organization - take the steps to actively disseminate this information. Additionally, if employees make appreciable strides their day-to-day work, include that information in a weekly "here's the top accomplishments of our company's employees." Showing marked appreciation of your people is a very wise business move.

Cultural Issues. Different cultures often have different socially accepted processes governing interpersonal relations. If someone in your organization feels uncomfortable with dealing with his or her colleagues because of these differences, it can lead to the growing desire to find other companies where such stress doesn't exist.

One of the best ways to deal with these issues is to actively ensure all employees know what kind of behavior is tolerated within an organization. Providing diversity education as well can go a long way towards fostering understanding between your employees; one great resource for this can be found at The Multicultural Advantage. Another is the Free Management Library where you'll find tons of information regarding dozens of management concerns.

Sinking Ship Syndrome. Virtually no employee wants to be the captain of the Titanic and go down with the ship. It's been scientifically proven that rumors travel faster than the speed of light (slight exaggeration, of course). If your company has received bad press in the news or on the Internet, it might experience a surge of employees looking for new job opportunities yesterday.

No matter what your company situation is like, openly disseminating information concerning its status is one way to deal with this particular retention issue. After all, it really could be only rumors - addressing this quickly can help in squelching them down.

Where do employees find corporate rumors? One place is Vault.com's Message Boards where employees post the latest buzz about the companies in which they work. Never think your employees won't uncover rumors about your company's stability - there will always be resources they can explore.

Perceived better offer. Quality recruiters know how to contact the star employees of your corporation and produce job opportunities that entice your people to consider them. No matter what firewalls you have on your corporate web sites, there are always ways experienced headhunters can utilize to track down their names and phone numbers (including personal home pages, research papers written, forums, mailing lists and the like).

Fostering a sense of pride in your corporation is one way to repel these outside attacks. Is there anything in your business environment that would be difficult to duplicate in another company? For example, perhaps your corporation wins the Malcolm Baldridge award every year. Or maybe employee recognition ceremonies that actively acknowledge and appreciate contributions from within. Or even something as simple as superior management.

A good way to find out what thrills your employees about your company is simply to create an anonymous poll and send it out. From the responses, you will get a good idea of the corporate strengths and weaknesses, and can address them as needed.

Personal reasons. Sometimes, professionals have to leave your company and the reasons are beyond your control. For example, maybe their spouse has been relocated and your employee plans to accompany them. Or maybe the stress levels of your corporate environment are so high that a job switch is the only solution to save sanity.

When personal reasons lead to employee turnover, there are several actions you can take to lessen the pain. First of all, remember that final impressions count as well! Provide any resources or support your HR department can offer - if the employee is relocating, for example, dig up links for information about that particular city. If stress proved to be too much of a factor, there are several sites online that can be useful for their future, such as the American Institute of Stress and the popular Stress Management and Emotional Wellness Links Resources Online.

The last impression you leave might sow positive impressions that compel the employee to refer others to your site as well. The grass might not turn out to be greener on the other side of the fence; should an employee want to return, and should you desire to hire him or her back, ensuring that no bridges are burned might net you that quality professional in the future.

Finally, always make sure to implement exit interviews when an employee leaves. Exit interviews can provide you with an eagle-eye view of the issues that are really impacting your employee morale. And don't do these in a cursory fashion - the information you can glean from them will enable you to improve your retention ratio in the future. Take advantage of that.

Barbara Ling is an Internet consultant and Web advisor. She is the author of The Internet Recruiting Edge (Lingstar publishing, 732-203-1194). Her book won a five-star rating from Inc. Magazine for online recruiting resources. She also created and teaches the highly popular RISE Internet Recruiting Seminars.