How to keep good staff longer

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Understand that as a manager you are the key to keeping your staff.

It's not the job of the HR department or something that miraculously develops out of that hard-to-define, elusive thing called company culture.

Management training, says consultant Bill Rehm, must include their education "as to their role in the retention equation and how the manager's behaviour affects the reasons employees exist the company".

Record, measure and understand your company's turnover.

Without the numbers, says former Woolworths HR head-turned-consultant Aston Moss, it's difficult to determine how big a problem turnover may be, and how much it may be costing.

"You need to have the numbers or an equivalent metric," says Auckland-based Moss, "maybe the length of time people stay. If you establish a starting point then you'll know when you've made progress."

Understand motivation.

According to the useful handbook Just About Everything a Manager Needs to Know (Flanagan and Finger, distributed in NZ by Plum Press, $54.95), there are two types: love motivation (doing things out of love) and fear motivation (the opposite). Your job is to cultivate positive motivating forces in staff and colleagues. "You can't make someone want to be great", says Moss.

Make work itself a motivator.

According to Flanagan and Finger, work can be motivating in itself if employees have, for example, some scope to vary the methods, sequence and pace of their work, are given increased responsibility, and encouraged to participate in planning and evaluating new techniques. These opportunities enrich their working lives.

After all, says Moss, how many people want to get up and go to work to do a lousy job?

Do exit interviews.

Make sure you have accurate information on why people are leaving. Ask them. Moss recommends exit interviews, whether face-to-face, by telephone, or written on paper.

But he says it's best that exit interviews are done on the departing staffer's terms, which could be just after they have handed in their notice or the day they leave. "Don't enforce an organisational system."

And take them as you find them: resigning is rarely an emotion-free zone. "But don't assume everything they say is the gospel and everything they suggest should be changed," says Moss.

But be warned: please-stay discussions following a resignation are rarely productive, says Moss. "Something like 10 per cent of people can be talked into staying, and only 10 per cent of those are still there in six months".

Never assume - ask staff for feedback.

Don't assume you know what people are thinking, advises Moss, or what their career aspirations are. "That makes an ass of you and me."

Talk to your employees about what makes them stay. Know enough about them to be aware what personal or professional issues concern them or may impact on their performance.

But remember that you go to work to be respected rather than liked - don't get too pally in your need to know more about what drives your employees.

Focus on your top performers.

Understand who are the most valuable people to your business and focus on them, says Moss.

Communicate targets clearly.

Every organisation needs targets, every staffer needs goals. "But in any organisation, the goalposts move," says Moss. "Managers typically feel they are proactive in saying 'the goalposts are moving', but they often fail to say, 'this is how we're getting there."'

Provide opportunities to learn.

"Yes, it may seem paradoxical," says Rehm. "Why should you help your employees to acquire skills that will help him or her to move on? The reason is that your understanding and support promotes loyalty to you and the company.

Ensure everyone is working to their potential.

"People want to work with similarly competent and committed colleagues," says Moss. "If they see other people who are slackers ... they do wonder why they should work twice as hard so hard."

Do ...

... seek external expertise if you don't have the resource, skills or knowledge to do something yourself.

Don't ...

... think that a retention strategy is the responsibility of your HR department.

... assume everyone good who is gone is gone for good.

... expect turnover issues to be fixed overnight.

... try to keep everyone.

"Have a philosophy that some people will leave," says Moss. "Develop your organisational processes so that people who join can get up to speed as quickly as possible."

Adds Rehm: "The issue isn't whether someone will leave. Everyone's going to leave sooner or later, whether it's with a gold watch or in a wooden box."