Reducing employee turnover has become one of the most important business challenges today because small businesses cannot afford to lose highly skilled workers and keep attempting to hire and train inexperienced replacements from a labor force that seems to be shrinking in size.
Small businesses will have to go further to reach the number of new hires required to keep their businesses fully staffed. One strategy, that I have been using with my coaching clients, is to address some of the key reasons why people have left in the first place and therefor increase your chances of reaching your hiring goals.
If you can better understand the motivations of each of your staff to connect with them as individuals that feel needed , noticed and appreciated throughout their employee experience will help you build toward the retention of your existing staff in order for your business to thrive and grow.
Do you treat your employees as individual or do you just lump everyone together into one big employee pile? How would you like to be treated. Just like everyone else? Probably not and neither do your employees. Think about it. Could you retain more employees if you treated them as individuals?
If you neglect your employee’s individual experience, and they hate their job—imagine the message they’re broadcasting to your customers. Your employees are your most important brand ambassadors. An improved employee experience reduces absenteeism, decreases wait times, increases employee engagement and productivity, builds relationships and increases customer loyalty.
I recently ran across an article written by Braden Kelley, an expert on “Human Centered Change” and shared his wisdom on what motivates individuls differenty than others. I thought this would be helpful to many of you. Here is how he categorized workers:
1. MOVER ‘N SHAKERS – These are the go getters in your business. Give these people the chance to be first.
2. THRILL SEEKERS – These people like to try new things and experiment. Give them the opportunity to be creative and try new things in your business.
3. MISSION-DRIVEN – These people need the reasons to believe in your pupose. Make sure you share the “Why” of your business. In other words, why your business exists. Example: “A Passion to Serve Others” or Disney’s – “To Make People Happy!”
4. ACTION-ORIENTED – These people just want to know what needs to be done and they’ll do it!
5. EXPERT-MINDED – Teach these people how to do it and they will seek mastery. They are extremely detailed and love to make it perfect the first time.
6. REWARD-HUNGRY – These people want recognition for their actions and work. Make sure you notice their efforts.
7. TEAM PLAYER – These people are happy to help if you show them why what they do will be helpful to the rest of the team and make everyone better.
8. TEACHER – Show these people how to get others to choose change and they will glaldy help you teach the others.
How many of your employees or teammates can you identify to be in one of those categories? The key to building and maintaining momentum for employee retention is to understand and harness the different mind-set that cause people to act differently. “Treat people like they would want to be treated”.
Improving your retention capabilities will put you on the right side of “The Great Resignation” as a small business employer of choice to compete with the larger companies who have more money to throw out at your staff.
Purely by the numbers, it’s cheaper to retain disengaged employees than to replace them. Even worse, any time you lose a knowledgeable employee, you also lose intrinsic knowledge not written down anywhere. And, when good employees leave, morale among the remaining employees can also drop.
Ironically, the heaviest burden on remaining employees is the new employees who are being hired to reduce the stress from the increased workload caused by mass resignations. But instead of taking work away from the remaining workers, their time and energy are spent on onboarding and training—which adds more work for everyone.
So, in this tight labor market, focus instead on retaining the workers you already have. This tactic will reduce your hiring challenges and enable you to deliver better customer—and employee—experiences. Now that would be “magical”!
Need help with reducing turnover, hiring and keeping great people? Contact John today! info@johnformica.com or (704) 965-4090.