July 22, 2002 Issue

The Best Recruitment and Retention Strategies Around

1. People most often leave for more pay. While research shows that most people do not leave a job for more money, very low-income workers will leave for more money in order to make ends meet. Others use pay to express a perception of unfairness in how the organization values their contribution.
2. Productivity-based incentive programs produce long-term impacts and improved morale. Studies show that carrot-and-stick motivation programs do not pay off with long-term employee retention. Employees want a chance to learn and grow in the job, meaningful work, good supervisors, and appreciation for a job well done.
3. Employees do not want more responsibility. Employees are not looking for more work, but are looking for opportunities to grow and develop their skills. Employees want to try new things, to feel skillful, and to experience personal satisfaction from higher levels of achievement.
4. Loyalty is dead. Employees want greater work-life balance as well as the opportunity to make higher contributions to the success of the organization. Employees express loyalty when given the opportunity to better serve customers and are given more learning opportunities.
5. Improving employee satisfaction is expensive. Research tells us that employees cannot be bought. Employees want a manager that listens and responds to employees' ideas, supervisors who support people's growth and initiative, more training in how to do their job better, and good co-worker relationships.
6. Employee satisfaction is fluff. Studies show that lower turnover and greater satisfaction levels have a positive impact on customer satisfaction and organizational financial success.
7. Supervisors are the problem. Supervisors today on average have more staff reporting to them than in the past. Yet the amount of training provided to supervisors is minimal.
8. My organization's employees are different. Employee issues and needs are universal and are not dependent upon industry.

1. Capture the Heart. The highest achievable level of service comes from the heart. The company that reaches its peoples' hearts will provide the very best service. Organizations that help employees balance work and life demands, inject fun into the workplace, and create compelling visions of how they contribute to the organization's success capture the hearts of their employees.
2. Open Communication. Employees are more loyal when they feel connected to the organization. Successful organizations encourage their employees to ask questions of their supervisors regarding the business and to have them involved in critical business decisions.
3. Create Partnerships. Many of these organizations create partnerships by sharing financial numbers with employees, both in good times and bad, and by linking incentive compensation programs to both individual and team success and failure.
4. Drive Learning. These companies require employees to develop their skills to perfection and ask their employees to learn something new every day. A number of these organizations make available industry-specific reading material and provide in-house seminars, allowing employees work time to develop their skills.
5. Employee Action. These organizations understand that to increase employee loyalty and retention, they must go beyond traditional empowerment programs. Rather, they give employees the freedom to succeed. A rule at many of these organizations is to use your good judgment at all times.

1. Pay attention to top employees to make sure they are being developed, rewarded, and recognized for their contributions. Develop a reputation for this in the industry to attract future talent.
2. Build and maintain relationships with top employees so that departure from the organization will be a personal and very difficult decision for the employee. They will also share this sense of belonging with potential new employees.
3. Increase confidence and hope among employees through a participative vision and strategy. Engage your employees. Develop a reputation as an open organization that really listens to employees and their ideas.
4. Build loyalty, commitment, and trust so that employees offer these back to the organization. We only have to look at Enron and WorldCom to see what happens when trust is lost.
5. Create clear communication pathways so employees always learn important information first hand.

1. effective internal management,
2. career development opportunities,
3. work-life balance programs, and
4. strong compensation and recognition programs.

Looking for a top-notch presenter for your human resource organization's meeting? Both Jennifer Loftus and Michael Maciekowich present highly-rated sessions on a variety of compensation and employee retention issues. For more information, send an e-mail to info@astronsolutions.com.

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Copyright 2007, Astron Solutions, LLC

ISSN Number 1549-0467