6 Steps to Retaining Your Best Employees

According to a new survey by Yahoo! Hot Jobs, nearly half of the U.S. workforce plans on looking for a new job in 2007. “And that number represents only those who will actively look.” More would be open if the right opportunity came along.

Employees are the backbone of your business. A good employee is hard to find.  It’s expensive to replace and train employees.  It takes a long time for new employees to reach full productivity.  Losing good employees can cause morale problems for those who remain. Staff shortages cause operational problems and missed deadlines for customer projects. There will be increasing staff shortages as baby boomers retire. These are some of the reasons why you may want to place greater emphasis on retaining your good employees.

Does it seem that no matter what you’ve done, your company still has high turnover?  Are you resigned to running on the treadmill, constantly starting a new group of collectors, account executives or other key employees?  Do you feel like too many employees are leaving just when they finally learned the right way to do things?

While many growing businesses have these problems, you don’t have to spend all your time dealing with these issues.  There are steps that you can take that will minimize turnover of good employees.

First, please realize that it’s not just about money.  Compensation is just one factor that may influence employees too stay or leave.  While you want to make sure that you are competitive in the marketplace, you don’t need to be the highest paying organization to have loyal staff.  Here some other areas to think about.

Track turnover.  What gets measured gets done. I suggest dividing the number of annual departures by the average number of employees.  Unless you have very wide fluctuations, average employees are approximately the number at the beginning of the year plus the number at yearend, divided by two.  To be more accurate you can also count employees on a monthly basis.  However you compute it, do it consistently so that you can track your progress. Collectors and customer service reps are more likely to turn over than management staff, but if you are above 50% you have lots of opportunity for improvement.