Top 7 Ways to Improve Employee Retention

The difficulty in finding and keeping talented people is having a catastrophic impact on many businesses and industries throughout the world. In addition to those retiring, surveys show one out of every three people plan on quitting their jobs this year. The greatest threat employers face is losing their best and brightest to the competition. That’s a lot of talent leaving organizations and just the beginning of what many people have described as the "perfect storm."
Money and benefits are important, but studies show most employees leave for other reasons. Obviously, a certain degree of turnover is unavoidable, but with a small amount of effort organizations can make a major difference. Your retention plan should address the following key components.
1. Hire the best and avoid the rest - at Yahoo they would rather leave a position open than hire the wrong person. Instead of waiting for people to apply for jobs, top organizations spend time looking for high-caliber people whether they have a job opening or not.
2. Redesign your orientation program for new employees. The old saying, "You don't get a second chance to make a good first impression" is true in this case. Organizations experience the highest level of turnover during the first 90 days on the job. The purpose of onboarding is to quickly assimilate the new person into the organization, so make the first critical days stand out as a positive experience. This is a great opportunity to make new hires feel proud to have chosen your organization.
3. Provide flexible work schedules adapted to the needs of the individual. In today’s workplace, flexibility rules. A one-size-fits-all approach has long since lost its effectiveness. Workers will migrate to a company whose benefit packages and schedules help them meet the demands of their lives, whether they are single parents, *****s who care for aging parents, older workers, younger workers, part-time workers, or telecommuters.
4. Provide career development. For many people, learning new skills and advancing their career is just as important as the money they make. In a study by Linkage, Inc. more than 40 percent of the respondents said they would consider leaving their present employer for another job with the same benefits if that job provided better career development and greater challenges.
5. Create an early warning detection system. Ask employees to let you know if they hear of people who are thinking about quitting. Advance notice will give you an opportunity to try to prevent the departure. One practice Applebee's put in place is the "Turnover Alert Form." It is designed to identify and prevent discontented managers from quitting. In those situations, Applebee’s brings the managers in to meet with the CEO and possibly other executives. They want to identify and repair anything that might be causing job dissatisfaction.
6. Look for triggers. Focus on individuals going through some form of change such as marriage, pregnancy, divorce, a child's graduation, mergers, or other important events that could influence job satisfaction and/or persuade or force employees to leave the organization prematurely.
7. Identify and weed out poor managers. The relationship with the employee’s front-line manager is the most common reason people leave. As part of LaRosa's employee retention strategy, all workers evaluate their bosses twice a year using a special report card. It asks the employees to give their managers a letter grade from A to D in four categories. Any score less than a "B" requires a specific comment from the employee. After it's completed, they tabulate the comments and design action plans for improvement.