Employee turnover is inevitable. Your goal is to manage attrition with a focus on retaining high performers and enabling all your workers to achieve their maximum potential. This includes keeping them motivated, engaged and satisfied, thus boosting chances of growing their careers with your organization.
How can you keep your finger on the pulse of your employees’ needs?
Ask Them
By communicating with employees on an ongoing basis, you can identify areas for improvement before they become toxic. Adopting a culture of accessibility and two-way dialogue has the added advantage of giving employees a sense of ownership, a natural step toward long-term loyalty.
- Start during the onboarding process. Be accessible to your new hires from Day One. Have frequent conversations with them and find out what’s going well and what may need further clarification or direction. This eases their transition period – and it may provide you with best practices that they’ve brought with them from previous employers.
- Survey employees on a regular basis. Annually or every other year is a good time frame. Define the pluses and minuses of working for your company, including compensation, benefits, communication, training and development, leadership, quality, safety and operational processes. Drill down into areas that need attention. Keep employees involved not only in taking surveys, but in developing solutions. Communicate survey results and then form focus groups and task forces to implement corrective actions.
- Conduct exit interviews. Ask employees their reasons for leaving and what might have convinced them to stay.
What to Ask
Get to know your employees as individuals and monitor their ongoing needs. Learn their goals and what you can do to help them achieve them.
- Ask how they like to be managed. Do they prefer hands-on involvement or would they rather have management provide overall guidance and then step back and let them run?
- Learn their preferences for rewarding achievements. For some, leaving early on Friday can make all the difference in the world. Others look for structured bonus programs or dress-down days. Recognition is a key driver of employee satisfaction, but unless it’s appropriate to the individual, it can backfire.
- Find out how they work best. One company learned that some employees were much more motivated and productive if they could listen to music, yet others craved quiet. The solution: Headphones for those who like to crank tunes. You may not be able to accommodate every request, but listen to them and at the very least, respond.
- “What do you like – and what would you change – about your supervisor’s or the company’s management style?” This question may make you squirm a little, but it’s highly valid and can be a game-changer in terms of employee satisfaction. If a person is harboring resentment, it won’t go away on its own. And the answer may be right at your fingertips, but first you have to identify the problem.
- “What can we do to make your job easier?” No one knows a person’s job and its challenges like that individual. By getting their opinion, you can not only better meet their needs but also make long-standing improvements for the future of your business.
To learn more about managing turnover and related workforce development strategies, read our related posts or contact the team at PrideStaff Fresno today.