JUSTinTIME Retention™
In today's tight labor market,
business leaders agonize about high turnover because so many employees
leave before they deliver a decent return on the organization's recruiting
and training investment. Retention is the number one concern of human
resource managers in 1999, and this staffing crisis is about much more
than low unemployment rates. Almost non-stop downsizing, restructuring,
and reengineering have become necessary in most organizations just to keep
pace with chaotic markets and unpredictable staffing needs.
And temping, leasing, outsourcing, consulting, and small business entrepreneurship
are still the fastest growing forms of work. Stop trying to hold
back the tide. Create a JUSTinTIME retention model and thrive on
increasingly fluid employer-employee relationships.
Embrace the new "free
agents" and their new career path
The most talented workers
today are also the ones pursuing the most liquid "free agent" careers.
Understanding and supporting that career path is the most important key
to being an employer of choice in the new economy. That means providing
maximum learning resources in a culture of knowledge-work; regular exposure
to decision-makers and good working relationships with day-to-day managers;
clear goals and deadlines for tasks and responsibilities; a steady flow
of credit and rewards for value added; and a healthy work-life balance.
Develop personal retention
plans on day one
Instead of the old-fashioned
orientation programs, in which HR managers tell the new hires about the
organization's policies and procedures, use orientation to start a career
planning dialogue with new hires. What changing role might your organization
play in the career of each new hire as he/she moves from one stage of life
to the next? What changing roles might each new hire play in the
future of the organization? What might you have to offer each other
as the employer-employee relationship grows and evolves over time?
If you begin this dialogue on day one, the dialogue has a greater chance
of continuing through all the key turning points down the road when the
employee might consider leaving.
Provide internal escape
hatches
Free agents are much less
likely to leave the organization altogether if they can reinvent themselves
within the organization. Provide opportunities to move into new geographical
areas, new skill areas, work with new people, take on new tasks and responsibilities,
and work new schedules.
Encourage people to leave
without leaving
Once the organization has
invested in recruiting and training an employee, management has a stake
in retaining that person—even if not as a full-time on-site employee.
If you can’t keep the whole employee, why not keep as much as you can?
Instead of losing them completely, offer valued employees the chance to
work part-time or flextime, as telecommuters, periodic temps, or consultants.
And offer unpaid sabbaticals.
Build your reserve army
When valued people do leave,
put them in a database and consider them part of your reserve army.
Stay in touch with them. Call them up for active duty when there
is a project that fits. And re-recruit them after they've had a chance
to see that the grass isn't so much greener on the other side.
Create a new paradigm
for lifetime employment
The best people who serve
you well on a consistent basis will be your lifelong employees. They
may not always be working full-time, and their period of service will probably
not be uninterrupted, but if you can handle that, you’ll be well on the
way to turning the staffing crisis into a strategic advantage.
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