A Systematic Way to Improve Employee Retention and Recruitment

Paying attention to The 5 Elements of Success can dramatically improve your organization's recruitments and retention of employee. Taken together, these five elements constitute your company's culture - which is now considered by most experts to have a major effect on employee turnover or retention.

There are many factors outside your control or the control of your organization that affect employee retention and recruitment (these include industry downturns and the state of the larger economy).
However, what you do have within your control is to foster employee identification with your business. This is where The 5 Elements of Success can be a big help. In an economy where employees' have choices: "You need to become the employer of choice and garner and keep your employees commitment by fostering and maintaining the employee's identification with your organization." (HRZone, "Employee Turnover")

Today we're going to talk about how to do just that - because the stronger these five elements of success, (and the more clearly that you articulate them) the more likely you are to foster & maintain employees' identification with your organization - i.e., to both attract and retain valued employees.

1. The first Element of Success is your organization's Core Identity and Values. This acts as the "gravitational center" of the organization, keeping us together. It names who we are together & why we exist. This element includes our shared values, ethical standards (real vs. espoused), and cultural Identity.

Issues for Employee Retention: "Jobs that offer a sense of ownership & personal accountability are associated with higher satisfaction levels." Other issues that increase likelihood of retention and recruitment include: an individual's alignment with the organization's identity and values; comfort & fit with type of Core Culture; shared values. This first element also addresses issues of identity & meaning; as Studs Terkel concluded in his classic Working: "Work is not just a search for daily bread; it is also a search for daily meaning."

Questions to ask yourself regarding employee retention and recruitment:

• How can we do a better job of getting employees to "own" this work as THEIRS?
• How clear is our organization's identity to our employees?
• How much does it act as a center of gravity that directly affects our day-to-day work?
• What type of culture do we have; and how congruent is it throughout the organization?
• How compelling are our organization's values? To what degree do we act with complete integrity - that is, our business decisions reflect are stated core identity & values?
• How well do we send the message about who we are & why we do the work we do to people outside our firm?

2. The second Element of Success is your organization's Vision. It includes the unstated hopes and fears regarding the future of the workplace, level of optimism, shared beliefs ("group mind"), degree of innovation and creativity, and the capability of the business to learn.

Issues for Employee Retention: The ability for employees to grow and learn figures significantly into employee retention and recruitment: "Companies with low turnover rates spent 2X as much on training as did those with high turnover rates." Not only training, but also on-the-job daily learning figures here: are employees rewarded for learning? Is there a climate of support for learning or of fear that you will be punished for making a mistake or asking too many questions? Other vital matters in this second element include the employee's beliefs that the organization has a decent future - and they within it. Attitudes and beliefs are part of this second element, as is the sharing of knowledge.

Questions to ask yourself regarding employee retention and recruitment:

• What can we do to clarify, then articulate the organizations vision in a compelling way - so that it truly inspires workers? (Meets their ideals, gives them hope)
• What hopes - and what fears - are people expressing?
• How can we directly deal with employee's fears?
• How can we increase learning on the job and support employees to ask questions?
• What kinds of training will help us retain employees? (Hints: research indicates that employees find training to be most useful if it has one or more of the following characteristics: it is "interesting, unique, competitive, and of personal value," i.e., transferable to other parts of life)
• How do we reward positive attitudes, innovation, and trying new ways of doing things?

3. The third Element of Success is Mission. An organization's Mission is like a fire that burns in people to get job done & make a difference in their lives and work. To improve retention and recruitment there must be an alignment within the organization about what we're in business to do, priorities, the action we're to take. When the mission is clear, and workers have the power to act on it, good employees are drawn to and stay in the organization. A clear strong mission generates a high degree of energy and productivity. Other retention/recruitment issues in this element include: autonomy, recognition and rewards, meaning/context of job; worker pride & commitment; ability to use talents/abilities in work

Issues for Employee Retention: Conflict with supervisor often cited in exit interviews. The mission of the organization is a great aide in decision making, taking the matter out of the personal realm while keeping people focused on a shared purpose. Empowerment and autonomy: jobs that offer greater freedom and choice in execution (i.e., empowerment) are associated with higher satisfaction levels. Appropriate recognition, rewards as recognized methods of motivating employees to increase retention and improve recruitment. Worker pride & commitment are improved by a sense of context (that what an employee does really matters to the whole operation). This equals significance, and research indicates that jobs that are perceived as important are associated with higher job satisfaction. And lastly, employees come to- and stay in - jobs that allow them to use their talents/abilities in their work. This often translates to variety (jobs that offer a greater variety of tasks are associated with higher satisfaction levels - i.e, interesting vs. boring; use some of employee's talents.) This addresses the problem that Studs Terkel wrote about in Working - "Most of our jobs are too small for us."

Questions to ask yourself regarding employee retention and recruitment:

• What actions are we rewarding (what are the criteria; who determines rewards?)
• Do we recognize achievement promptly? How close are rewards to the behavior?
• How can we use this person's talents so that they stay with us?
• What can we do to make employees proud of this workplace & the work they do?
• How can we "spice up" our reward systems (eg, "101 ways to reward your employees)
• Do employees complain that we micromanage them?
• Do employees have a lot of energy to do their work, or do they have "bad attitudes"and/or seem beaten down?
• How can we hire - and reward - self-starters?

4. The fourth Element of Success is Interactions. This element provides the glue that keeps an organization together. It includes communications (including feedback); relationships (with colleagues and internal and external customers); trust, respect, loyalty, care; flow of information; teamwork; and diversity. All these translate to high morale & a sense of community - which in turn contributes to employee retention and recruitment.

Issues for Employee Retention: Feedback- Jobs that offer intrinsic feedback on quality of performance are associated with higher satisfaction levels. Effective feedback comes from conducting regular evaluations. A sense of community with co-workers and respect for a boss will keep employees on the job during times of organizational stress. Communication skills are vital: "Good interpersonal skills and fairness go a long way in keeping employees on the job/" Team/community/friends - need for belonging & appreciation, being seen & heard - if these needs met, people reluctant to leave

Questions to ask yourself regarding employee retention and recruitment:

• How is morale? (If bad - what to do about it - hint, get feedback from staff. If good, what are we doing right? & how to keep it up)
• How well are our leaders trained to supervise staff?
• In what ways can we help develop communication skills and emotional intelligence in our leaders?
• How can we improve communications so everyone knows what's going on & can easily give feedback?
• How do we develop a stronger sense of community? So that employees feel they are an integral part of the community/team/organization.

5. The final Element of Success is Structure. This includes all the tangible, measurable, visible aspects of an organization (often the only element that is addressed in recruitment and retention). The solid body of the organization is its formal structure - as illustrated in an organizational chart & also its informal, operational structure. This elements also includes work processes (how work really gets done); policies, procedures, rules; physical resources (competitive salaries & benefits), work space, the equipment & tools by which the work is done - and last, but not least, the outcomes produced (products or services).

Issues for Employee Retention: In order to secure and keep employees, you must pay competitive wages and offer reasonable benefits. (* Note that money is often cited in exit interviews when people don't want to talk about the real issues for leaving.) People will also be drawn to organizations that have the resources/tools/organizational design that support getting their own work done. Moreover, employees want to see that there are high quality outcomes from their efforts.

Questions to ask yourself regarding employee retention and recruitment:

• Are our salaries & benefits competitive?
• How fairly do we structure financial rewards? And, do we rely on them too much for motivation? (Rewards can also involve the oher elements of success: positive feedback, training, formal recognition programs, changing job titles, special project assignments, time to interact with colleagues, a real lunch hour so they can walk outdoors or talk with friends)
• How can we structure the organization so that it supports the people who are serving our customers? (eg, physical space or tools that work)