Employee Retention Strategies—Your Guide for the Best Employee Retention Strategies to Retain Your Best Employees
Employee Retention Tactics Need Values
Ross Blake, “The Employee Retention Manager”
If you’re implementing employee retention strategies and tactics just to save your organization from the costly consequences of employee turnover (financial costs, reduced productivity, lost competitiveness, etc.) you’ll probably make some progress, but miss a lot of benefits.
Tactics alone only accomplish so much.
When they’re supported by values, you can accomplish much more.
What are these “values?”
It’s the belief that you undertake employee retention strategies not only to reduce negative consequences, but to also affirm and develop employees.
A person’s or leader’s or organization’s intentions behind their actions speak loudly.
If you implement only tactics and not values, you run company picnics, conduct exit interviews, and send birthday cards, but terminate an employee early to avoid paying her retirement.
If you implement only tactics and not values, you hire a new employee and “welcome her aboard,” but never tell her why you chose her in the first place.
If you implement only tactics and not values, you post your people-centered mission on the lobby wall, but ignore abusive supervisors or managers.
If you implement only tactics and not values, you talk about “open door policies,” but rarely give employees positive feedback about the good work they’re doing because “it’s what they’re being paid for.”
All of these have a major impact on retention.
It is retention values + tactics that result in turnover cost reduction and retains valuable employees.
Here’s a statement from a very successful company that explains what retention values + tactics look like.
According to Bill Greehey, chairman of San Antonio based Valero Energy Corp, “We’ve found that the more you do for your employees, the more they do for the company, the community, and the shareholders.”
The company has over 18,000 employees and consistently receives high rankings in Fortune magazine’s “Best Companies to Work For” awards. It’s presently ranked at number 22.
What do you need to do to be certain more values stand behind your employee retention efforts?
