Employee Retention

by Angela Gallogly
Vice President of USA Operations, Advanced Team Concepts
http://www.atctraining.com

As I was reading Scott’s blog last week, it inspired my next topic. Scott did a great job of quantifying the cost to our organizations when we neglect to train and develop our employees. I’d like to add to that with a related topic. It occurred to me that an additional risk of not developing our teams is the risk of losing our best “players.” I’d like to devote this blog to the topic of employee retention.

The retention of human resources is very important, and turnover of employees occurs for a variety of reasons. Some types of turnover are easily explained as functional. For example:

• People retire
• Employees’ marital or family status may change
• Family relocates

Other types of turnover, however, are more preventable. These include those instances where people are dissatisfied with conditions of employment, or lack commitment to the organization. This is where the opportunity for turnover reduction exists.

Retaining employees can seem like a daunting challenge, particularly if high turnover rates have become acute, or the problem is centered on people whose talent, expertise and experience are critical to the organization’s delivery of products or services. There's a great book that can help you begin:

Research from the Gallup organization has validated key areas that are important to employees. This data was captured in the book, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, Simon & Schuster, 1999. The book’s been around for awhile and has grown over the years in popularity. It provides focus in key areas of need for employees, including:

• Employees want to know what’s expected of them.

• Employees want the resources needed to do their job well.

• Employees want to opportunity to do their best and be recognized for doing so.

• Employees want to fit into the corporate culture. They want good relationships.

• Employees want their opinions to count.

• Employees want to be trained and developed. They want to learn and grow.

If retention is an issue for your organization, it could be important to do an analysis to identify the factors resulting in employee turnover, and then create strategies to minimize or eliminate the causes of the turnover.

A good strategy focuses on creating a place where people come to do good work, share in the rewards, and achieve satisfaction in the process.

This approach focuses attention on the combination of two critical things:

• What the business/organization needs
• What the employee/associate wants and needs

Understanding and success in both of these areas is critical to successfully retaining talent while increasing performance of the organization.

The Price of Not Developing Employees

by Scott Airitam
Scott Airitam's Leadership Systems, LLC

When I talk with people about the learning and development efforts of their organization, I always feel a little bit bad for those who say that "there is no budget for training." Employee development is the foundation for long-term viability in any industry. Conversely, largely undeveloped work groups are the ones that tend to fall behind, reinvent the wheel with each new project, and generally have a difficult time keeping the best employees.

The economy was bad in 2008. Not only that, but many budgets were tighter than usual due, in large part, to those budgets having been created during a time where two very distinctly different leaders were vying for the White House. With uncertain Leadership and a tumultuous fiscal situation, it was no wonder that organizations weren't spending as much. However, ASTD (The American Society for Training and Development) estimates that U.S. organizations spent approximately $134 billion on employee learning and development in 2008, in spite of all the logical reasons not to make this investment.

Imagine an author who refused to learn to use a computer. Picture an athlete that never worked to build endurance. Think of a doctor that didn't understand medical equipment. The hardships they would face are similar to what it is like for an organization that doesn't invest in employee learning and development. Can that author, athlete, doctor or organization be successful? Technically, you'd have to say yes, although, realistically, the statistical odds would be astronomically long. In today's world, it is too difficult to compete against others that make themselves better--especially with self-inflicted growth and development issues.

Every organization should be investing in learning and development for it's greatest asset--it's people. Every organization, based on the ASTD research shared above, should assume that the competition is making that investment. There is definitely a cost associated with that. With that kind of price associated with not doing it, doesn't it make it logical to use that same money to make the organization more competitive and effective?

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