Retention management – “should I stay or should I go”

As promised, I’m continuing on a previous post, "Retention mgt. vs. new hire", that handled the cost & effort of employees resigning. Now let's try and have some more insights on the retention part which is far more interesting.

"Retention management is a systematic effort by employers to create and foster an environment that encourages current employees to remain at the same employer having policies and practices in place that address their diverse needs” .[From  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Unless employees are feeling neglected, unappreciated, or mistreated, most employees would prefer not to go through a job change and would rather stay with their current employer, providing there exists a reasonable opportunity to learn and grow.

What really matters?

• Your people want — actually demand — opportunities to grow and fulfill their potential.
• Finding a new job is a hassle, and, all else being equal, employees will stay

…. but what is “all else” … this brings us to the employees emotional balance, a difficult thing to manage, a fragile thing that needs continuous attention. The composition of someone’s employee balance is personal, but there are definitely some main building blocks that keep coming back.

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	(Life, work, family, salary, trust, training, growth, respect, commuting time, ambition, ...)

It’s a people manager’s job to monitor the emotional balance of his employees, even if you can’t have direct impact on some parts it remains important to understand which building blocks influence the balance. Two-way, consistent communication, one2one’s, good expectation mgt. contribute to the balance.

So keep monitoring that balance, work on it proactively and I’m sure that your retention rate will do good, your people will feel good and you will feel better. Think win – win!

Oh … one more thing … while writing this post I couldn’t keep thinking about this song “should I stay or should I go – The Clash” :-)