What happens when your employees (or your team or your spouse or your kids) aren’t engaged?  They leave.

Study after study indicates that when employees are challenged, developed, have a purpose, are given the autonomy to do their job and are listened to…they stay.  Isn’t it the worst feeling when your best employee walks in and tells you they are leaving.  Panic sets in and then the hard part of finding a replacement takes up your focus, money and time.

I say this all the time, just because we no longer go to work after college  and work at the same company until retirement doesn’t mean that it’s better than 50 years ago when that was exactly the norm.  Yes, we are more career transient now but it doesn’t need to be that way.  The best thing for all business is top talent retention.

The costs of replacing an employee are far higher than you might think. The time that you lose when someone leaves a position is staggering.  You need to find, interview, hire and train a replacement which can take upwards of 6-12 months (depending on the role).  That works out to be a ton of lost time and money.  Of cousre, I recommend hiring a recruiter to do this for you…but what can I say, I’m biased. 

 What can we do to increase retention?  

• Build a culture of respect
• Listen to employee ideas
• Regularly spend time with employees (coffee, lunch, drinks after work)
• Knock down organizational barriers
• Promote cross training and cross functional understanding
• Recognize a job well done
• Offer career training and development
• Include the team in hiring decisions
• Let employees set company goals and work as a team to achieve them

Engaged employees drive organizational efficiency

Taking the time to ensure that managers are individualizing within their team and leading each person according to their strengths and weaknesses makes everyone feel like they are part of the bigger picture.  Managers who drive their own agenda with no care of who or how they get there…usually don’t get there.

There is nothing more impactful than a manager who is open to conversation and who really listens to employees thoughts, plans, concerns and ideas.

HOW WAS YOUR DAY?

A few years ago, I ran across a cool tool (Celpax) which asks employees each day if they had a good or a bad day.  Pretty simple idea but have you ever worked someplace that asked?  The results are anonymous and are sent to the hiring manager or HR team for review.  We all know that when EVERYONE has a bad day at work that something major happened and as a group it had a blanket effect. When that type of activity shows up on your Celpax dashboard, dig in to the cause before bad days turn in to bad weeks.  Alternatively, you have one person having a several bad days in a row, that is probably an indication that something may be happening in their personal lives.  Depending on the size of your team it might be worthwhile to check in with each person to offer help, guidance or just a bit of understanding as they work through their out of work issues.

Engagement NOT replacement.  Keep that in mind and your business will thank you. 

Read my bog post to learn about Celpax, With the Push of a Button.

Visit their website.  Celpax