COVID-19 led to record unemployment as businesses shut down in response to stay-in-place mandates. While some workers were able to work from home, others were furloughed or laid off.
As the economy slowly starts reopening, businesses will begin staffing back up, and you will want to make sure your current employees stay with you rather than seek positions elsewhere. If you also want any new hires to have long tenure with your company, you need to make sure you understand and address their concerns. Keep in mind that prior to COVID-19, young people typically had 10 to 14 jobs before they reached age of 38, according to Dick Finnegan, CEO of C-Suite Analytics.
One good way to do that is with, what Finnegan calls, a stay interview. In a recent webinar, Finnegan defined a stay interview this way: a structured discussion a supervisor conducts with each individual employee and what specific action [the supervisor] must take to strengthen the employee’s engagement and retention with the organization.
There are several key points here. First, the employee’s supervisor has to be the one conducting the interview, not the HR department. Second, the interviews have to be conducted for each individual employee, not just the top performers. These interviews need to be face-to-face because while employee surveys will get you data, they will not give you the solutions you need to address the employees’ concerns. That can only happen when the supervisor and the employee sit down and talk.
A key point to remember is that a higher salary may not be enough to retain an employee. In fact, an employee’s direct supervisor plays the biggest role in retention and also in how an employee views the company overall. To be clear, the best boss is not one that has no shortcomings, but rather is one that has built trust with his or her employees to the point where they overlook those shortcomings. On the flip side, Finnegan says, the worst boss has strengths but without trust, employees do not see those strengths.
If you want to improve your employee retention you must begin by setting a goal. It could be something like cutting total annual turnover by 20% or improving new hire retention by 15%.
Once you have those goals in place, it is time to start conducting stay interviews. These interviews should not be scheduled at the same time as an employee’s annual performance review and should happen at least once a year —twice a year for new hires. Make sure your managers are properly trained in how to conduct these interviews. The interviews are about listening, building trust and recognizing emotions. Stay interviews are not the time for managers to talk about themselves.
The interviews consist of five simple questions:
- When you travel to work each day, what do you look forward to?
- What are you learning at work?
- Why do you stay on the job?
- When was the last time you thought about leaving the company?
- What can I, as your manager, do to make the job better for you?
Managers should take notes during the interview in order to capture what is important to the employee. Once you have determined what really matters to an employee, the manger needs to find ways to build on those things to further engage the employee.
Turnover costs a company money; sources say anywhere from 16% to 20% of an employee’s annual salary is what it costs every time an employee leaves.
Seems like it is worth it to have your managers spend a little time with your employees to try to keep them on board and engaged.
Jane Clark focuses on managing the member services operation at NationaLease as vice president of member services. She works to strength member relationships, reduce member costs, and improve collaboration within the NationaLease supporting groups.
