Retention Secrets How To Retain Your Best Talent

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By Sherman Morrison

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

RETENTION SECRET #1: BETTER ONBOARDING

RETENTION SECRET #2: MENTORING

RETENTION SECRET #3: MEDIATION

RETENTION SECRET #4: GOING SOCIAL

RETENTION SECRET #5: CREATING A CARROT CULTURE

RETENTION SECRET #6: GAMIFICATION FOR TALENT MANAGEMENT SUCCESS

RETENTION SECRET #7: OPEN BOOK MANAGEMENT

RETENTION SECRET#8: PARTICIPATORY DECISION-MAKING

RETENTION SECRET #9: PROMOTING FROM WITHIN

RETENTION SECRET #10: EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND CLIMATE ASSESSMENTS

IDEAS FOR SURVEY ITEMS

CONCLUSION

ENDNOTES

Introduction

Employee disengagement is a serious issue facing workplaces today, with 70% of employees feeling disengaged from their

work.1 That lowers productivity, and businesses are losing as much as $550 billion a year because of it. That percentage of

employees who are disengaged hasn’t budged much in recent years – in 2011 it was 71%.2

Although the picture looks bleak, there are plenty of things any organization can do to boost retention and engage

employees. Some of them require a good deal of effort and planning, but considering the staggering costs of employee

turnover, don’t you think it’s worth it? What follows are ten of the best-kept secrets your company can act on to keep

employees right where you need them – in your workplace.

Retention Secret #1: Better Onboarding

Here’s a scenario that happens all too often: You’re involved in a hiring process for a key managerial position company.

Everyone on the hiring committee works really hard to make sure you hire the right candidate. The job description is

meticulously reviewed, the position notice and ads are carefully written, designed and posted in all the right places, the pool

of candidates is robust, the interviews well-crafted and executed flawlessly, follow-up interviews help narrow the pool down

to three candidates, you wine them and dine them and extoll the virtues of the company, many lengthy committee

discussions take place, and at last, you make the hire. Everyone on the committee is ecstatic and utterly exhausted from the

whole process.

There’s always that moment of panic on the new employee’s first day. Will she really show up? You find yourself keeping an

eye on the lobby that morning. You heave a sigh of relief when you see the new hire making her way into the building. And

then… you turn and walk away. After all, you did your part on the hiring committee, right?

It is in that precise moment that your new hire’s disengagement from their job begins – before they’ve even really had a

chance to get started. The new employee enters the building eagerly, but no one is there to greet her. She sort of

remembers where to find her new office, and after a few wrong turns locates it. It’s a lovely office, and she is pleasantly

1 Siebold, S. (2013). New Gallup Poll Shows 70 Percent of Americans Are Disengaged From Their Jobs. HuffPost Business. Retrieved from

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-siebold/new-gallup-poll-shows-70-_b_3467078.html

2 Blacksmith, N. and Harter, J. (2011). Majority of American Workers Not Engaged in Their Jobs. Gallup. Retrieved from

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150383/majority-american-workers-not-engaged-jobs.aspx

surprised to find someone there. Unfortunately, it’s not her supervisor or someone from HR. It’s a rather grumpy IT tech

who is unpacking and setting up her computer. She is a little surprised and annoyed this wasn’t taken care of before she

arrived, seeing as that there were two weeks between being offered the job and her start date. Well, hopefully the phone

works…but it doesn’t.

Here are some additional data points that relate to that little scenario:3

● 67% of new employees plan to leave when they feel unsupported, like they aren’t even a team member. ● When a new hire is frustrated by problems with internal processes and equipment, 56% think about

leaving. ● 61% of new employees consider leaving when their manager does not take the time to listen to them. ● Employees who have been on the job less than one year are among those mostly likely to consider leaving.

That little hypothetical scenario presented above could easily land you right back on another hiring committee to re-fill that

same position just weeks or months later. And it all could have been avoided with better onboarding.

It’s completely mystifying that companies would put so much time and effort into recruitment, only to guarantee that the

new hire will become disenchanted and disengaged because of poor post-hiring practices. It’s high time that companies

make the new employee experience every bit as exciting and engaging as the candidate experience.

That transition from candidate to employee needs to become a seamless process that helps your company retain top-notch

talent long after onboarding. And the devil, as they say, is in the details. It begins by recognizing and admitting that your

onboarding process has problems or is anything less than stellar. This is true for a staggering number of organizations, and

admitting you have a problem is an important first step in doing something about it.

A company called iCIMS, a talent software company, suggests keeping the following in mind when creating or re-shaping

your onboarding process:4

● Think in terms of the new employee’s experience: Enriching but simple. ● Provide ongoing, clear, concise, and consistent channels of communication ● Facilitate learning at every organizational level ● Clearly align new hires to key business strategies ● Set milestones to gauge new hire success ● Present information in easily-digestible amounts ● Reinforce the employment brand and other positive aspects of the company culture ● Provide the employee with both standard onboarding elements and individualized onboarding elements

3 Navile, S. (n.d.). How to Lose Your New Hires in 10 Easy Steps. Kenexa. Retrieved from http://blog.kenexa.com/how-to-lose-your-new-

hires-in-10-easy-steps/

4 See http://www.icims.com/resources/whitepaper/onboarding

You can (and must) beat the bad statistics presented above and create onboarding that is a dream come true for your new

hires rather than their worst nightmare.

Retention Secret #2: Mentoring

Research shows that employees, and especially new hires, want a lot of support to be the best that they can be for your

company. If that support is not provided, workers are apt to become disengaged, which as previously, covers 70% of the

American workforce. One way to counter disengagement and provide employees with the support they both need and want

is through robust mentoring programs.

According to the Robert Walters 2013 Employee Insights Survey, 83% of nearly 10,000 survey respondents said they would

benefit from mentoring, but only 29% work for companies that offer any mentoring programs! 5

Part of the problem lies in the vagueness of the whole concept of mentoring. A Harvard Business Review blog post notes

that it is useful to think about three different kinds of mentoring.6 The first is buddy or peer mentoring, which involves

pairing up a new employee with a “buddy” to help the new hire travel through the learning curve faster. This shouldn’t be

thought of as a short, one-off orientation. It should last more like one or two years.

The second type is career mentoring, which pairs up a more senior employee with the more junior employee to help them

shape their career in the company and also serve as an internal advocate. The career mentor should not be the manager

who conducts the mentee’s performance evaluation reviews. It’s a less intense mentoring relationship in terms of frequency

of meetings compared to buddy/peer mentoring.

The third type is life mentoring, and the mentor in this case might not even be an employee of the company. This kind of

mentoring is for people who are reaching the midway or senior stages of their careers. The mentor serves as a big-picture

sounding board for various issues and challenges that come up in the mentee’s career.

What can these kinds of mentoring relationships accomplish for your company? There are six main benefits and reasons to

make robust mentoring a priority at your company:

1. Mentoring makes use of the resources your company already has in place. 2. Mentoring can make all the other learning, training and development efforts in your company more effective. 3. Mentoring is one way to increase inclusion at your company. 4. Mentoring can spark both creativity and innovation.

5 The report was retrieved from http://www.robertwalters-usa.com/wwwmedialibrary/files/employee-insight/FINAL

ENGLISH RW REPORT.pdf

6 Tjan, A. (2011). Keeping Great People with Three Kinds of Mentors. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from

https://hbr.org/2011/08/keeping-great-people-with-thre/

5. Mentoring can fill your company’s internal pipeline of developing leaders. 6. Mentoring contributes to the retention of your best talent.

Sun Microsystems evaluated 13 years worth of data on its mentoring programs from 1996-2009, concluding that the return

on investment (ROI) exceeded 1,000%.7 A different study of the Sun Microsystems mentoring programs over a seven-year

span found the following more specific positive business impacts:8

● Retention rates increased to 69% for mentors and 72% for mentees while the retention rate among non-participants was just 49%.

● Those better retention rates translated into saving $6.7 million that would otherwise have been spent on replacing employees.

● 25% of mentees and 28% of mentors enjoyed positive change in their salary grade, contrasted with only 5% among non-participants.

JB Training Solutions9 recommends the following specific tips when creating a mentoring program:

● Plan, plan, plan. It is important that you take time to create a well-defined plan that aligns with your business goals before implementing your mentoring program. Thinking through the process from beginning to end and identifying exactly what you hope to achieve with the program, will lay the foundation for success.

● Define what you want to measure. Once you identify your plan, figure out how you will measure the success of the program in relation to your business goals. This will be imperative to obtaining maximum funding and support from higher-ups.

● Don't let just anyone participate in the mentorship program. It is important to have a good application for employees to fill out that will tell you whether their individual skills and competencies are a good fit for the program. You will want to look for employees who possess skills in communication, coaching, listening, and have an interest in career development. Remember: high level employee does not necessarily equate to good mentor!

● Have employees volunteer or opt-in to the program. Don't force anyone to participate. Offer up the application online to everyone, but do not force anyone to participate. If you have to nag someone to apply, you will have to continue to nag them to fulfill their responsibilities as a mentor.

● Train your mentors, mentees and managers. Distribute engaging content and support materials, and offer online and on-site workshops before the program kicks off. Help everyone understand exactly what their role is throughout the process.

● Promote mentee-driven partnerships. Encourage a mentorship culture where mentees drive their own development and create their own learning plan. Their plan should include mentee driven goals and objectives.

7 Dickinson, K., Jankot, T., and Gracon, H. (2009). Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009. Retrieved from

http://www.filibeto.org/~aduritz/misc/smli_tr-2009-185.pdf

8 Vestrics (2013). Sun Microsystems University Mentoring Program. Retrieved from http://www.vestrics.com/sites/default/files/case-

studies/Sun_Mentoring_docx.pdf

9 See http://www.jbtrainingsolutions.com/article/9-tips-instituting-mentoring-program

● Identify a clear timeline. As a rule of thumb, it is best for mentors/mentees to meet for 1-2 hours each month, and a mentorship program typically lasts 9-12 months. If everyone knows this timeline upfront, they can better identify expectations and goals.

● Make good matches. Matching should all tie back to your goals. Focus on the mentee's needs or specific career development competencies. Have mentees set clear goals so that you know who could help them.

● Identify a plan for follow up. When the program officially concludes, it doesn't mean the mentor/mentee relationship is put to a halt. Many times, they will want to keep in touch on their own time about things they may have discussed in the formal mentorship program.

I hope you can see from the information presented above that establishing sustained mentoring programs in your company

is not something that is just “nice to have.” Instead, it should be considered a major strategic requirement of your

company’s approach to retaining your best talent.

Retention Secret #3: Mediation

Conflict in the workplace is inevitable. If you’re successful at recruiting a diverse workforce, you can expect differences to

eventually result in conflicts of various sorts. When problems between workers come up, knowing how to effectively solve

them can save your company from expensive lawsuits. The RAND Institute for Civil Justice estimates that it costs a company

an average of $150,000 to defend an employment discrimination lawsuit.

But even cases that don’t rise to the level of discrimination are costly. Incivility is rampant in American workplaces today. As

one researcher put it: “Among survey respondents, one target in eight left the job to escape a troublesome uncivil situation.

With fully loaded costs of turnover estimated at 1.5 to 2.5 times the salary paid for the job, or $50,000 per exiting employee

across all jobs and industries in the U.S., the bottom-line effects of incivility are far from trivial.”10

Christine Porath (USC Marshall School of Business) and Christine Pearson (Thunderbird School of Global Management), co-

authors of The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About It, estimate that the

stress caused by incivility in the workplace could be costing American companies as much as $300 billion a year in lost

productivity.

Mediation is a vital tool that HR professionals can add to their repertoire to solve workplace conflicts before they escalate

beyond repair. This is especially important when you need to do whatever it takes to heal an ongoing important relationship

between key employees that’s in trouble. Effective conflict mediation involves five basic steps as follows:

1. Identifying the Conflict’s Details. This may seem obvious, but you need as much information about the conflict as possible

to accurately pinpoint what’s happening. Both parties to the conflict need to be able to fully air their “sides” of the story,

10

Pearson, C. and Porath, C. (2005). On the nature, consequences and remedies of workplace incivility: No time for “nice”? Think again.

Academy of Management Executive. Retrieved from http://ww2.valdosta.edu/~mschnake/PearsonPorath2005.pdf

and you need to engage in active listening to get it right, showing that you’re understanding what is being said and that

you’re also being impartial in your role as mediator.

2. Going Deeper. Part of what you need to do as a mediator is look beyond the specifics of the incident, looking at it from a

bird’s eye view. Whatever the initial trigger may have been, unresolved conflicts fester over time and often cause an

escalating pattern of conflict between the parties involved. What’s at the root of the conflict? The parties may show an

ongoing tendency to make personal attacks on each other, but there’s something deeper driving those actions.

3. Mapping Potential Solutions. Think of this as a mini brainstorming session where both parties identify all the ways they

can think of how the conflict or the situation could be resolved. This is one way for the parties to begin setting aside their

conflicts and actually cooperating on a solution. Your role as mediator is to listen and capture the various ideas, as well as

preventing any finger-pointing that might creep into the process.

4. What Can Both Parties Support? Now that you’ve got an array of potential solutions, you need to get the parties to start

working together towards a final solution that they can both live with. There won’t always be perfect solutions to conflicts.

Sometimes the best you can do is arrive at something that both parties can live with or tolerate. Remind them that the end

goal is for everyone to cooperate in achieving the company’s mission and purpose.

5. Final Agreement. The process must end with a clear understanding between both parties on the alternative selected, and

a handshake to seal the deal. If you think it would help, you can even write up a kind of contract that lays out what actions

each party needs to take and when.

When you think about the huge costs to workplaces that result from incivility and conflict, it should be a no-brainer that it’s

high time to add the tool of effective mediation to your HR toolbox.

Retention Secret #4: Going Social

According to the Human Resources and Social Media study by KPMG11, there are a number of interesting statistics that

related to talent management and HR:

● 40% of companies admit to having no training or governance of social media. ● 60% of employees would like help from employers to share relevant content. ● 43% of companies rely on HR to create social media policies. ● 61% of Millennials don't use the traditional company resources, turning instead to the Web and other external

resources at their fingertips.

11 The report was retrieved from https://www.kpmg.com/US/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/human-

resources-social-media.pdf

Even more astounding is this from a recent SilkRoad study: 75% of leaders in human resources and talent management

believe their companies are behind the curve regarding both internal and external social networking technology.12 These

statistics indicate a rather large gap in communication strategy and execution.

Unfortunately, too many companies are stuck in a place of worrying about the potential negatives of social media in the

workplace, which is why back in 2009, 54% of companies in the US had banned the use of social-networking sites

altogether.13 Those numbers have made an abrupt about-face since then, but far too many companies have done little more

than begrudgingly accept the notion, which is a far cry from leveraging it into business success.

Many are also still worried about potential security vulnerabilities that come with increased social media presence and

activity. These threats come in the form of spam, worms, viruses, spyware, other malware, criminals, hackers, and lurkers.

But there are plenty of ways to greatly mitigate if not entirely remove these risks, which is worth the effort given the

potential upside.

Social media isn’t a fad, it’s a fact of life, and it’s time for companies to move beyond the fear that social media in the

workplace is a drag on productivity and instead embrace it and see all the positive benefits it can bring.

It’s especially important for talent management and HR professionals to make the most of it. Let’s face it, as the keeper of

policy, procedure and order in the workplace, it’s HR that can really drive adaptation, adoption, and change in the

workplace. Leveraging the power of social media in the workplace can result in increased productivity, improved retention

and better employee engagement.

Think about it – social media tools like web conferencing and instant messaging facilitate communication that can enhance

teamwork and collaboration, and do so without regard to physical distance between participants. The huge variety of online

communities, YouTube, blogs, and so on offer amazing sources of research and opportunities to both stimulate and hone

creative thinking, all of which contributes to increasing the efficiency and productivity of employees. The marketing

communications value of social media is of course beyond doubt.

If anyone raises eyebrows at your suggestion of going social in the workplace, fire off these following points about what

social media can do to drive your message home:

● Improve general communication and information sharing. ● Boost team productivity and effectiveness within projects and business processes. ● Support communities that stimulate innovation and learning, as well as diffuse best practices. ● Encourage peer-to-peer networking to strengthen professional and interpersonal relationships.

12 Meister, J. (2013). 2013: The Year Of Social HR. Forbes. Retrieved from

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2013/01/03/2013-the-year-of-social-hr/

13 Blurb on Page Fifty Seven website, retrieved from http://www.pagefiftyseven.com/post/63374989891/study-54-percent-

of-companies-ban-facebook-twitter-at

It’s also worth noting that a 2012 survey by Nielsen and NM Incite found that people spend nearly a third of their online

minutes scanning their social media accounts from mobile devices as contrasted with 20% spent visiting social networks

from PCs.14 HINT: If you’re going to go social, you should probably go mobile as well.

Retention Secret #5: Creating a Carrot Culture

We know the depressingly low percentage of employees that are truly engaged in their work. We also know that this lack of

engagement results in costly turnover. That turnover drains as much as $5 trillion out of the US economy each year, making

it one of the biggest costs in the American business world. A mere 5% increase in employee loyalty could increase profits by

50%. So goes some of the arguments and research presented by leadership and management gurus Adrian Gostick and

Chester Elton in their 2007 book The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People,

Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance.

Lots of ideas are out there for how to increase engagement, but what if there’s an additional missing ingredient? That’s

what Gostick and Elton think when they ask companies if their employees are not only engaged, but are they also satisfied?

Their research shows that the missing ingredient is frequent, effective, meaningful, and memorable recognition, which

doesn’t necessarily have much of anything to do with monetary rewards or bonuses.

The impact of this simple principle is profound. When presented with the statement, my organization recognizes excellence,

the companies that scored in the lowest fourth had an average return on equity (ROE) of just 2.4% while those that scored in

the top fourth averaged 8.7%. Meanwhile, among those who say morale is high in their organization, 94.4% report that their

managers are effective at recognition. Among those reporting low morale in the workplace, 56.6% give their managers a

failing grade on recognition.

In response to the challenge of improving retention, companies have tried all sorts of things, such as tuition reimbursement

for continuing education, more competitive vacation and time off packages, better benefits and higher pay, even better

recruitment practices. And yet retention continues to be far from robust. All those perks are great, but they’re missing the

mark because what’s really needed is more effective recognition.

Where the disconnect happens is in thinking that work motivation is more externally driven than it is in reality. Too many

leaders and managers fail to recognize that what’s at the root of work motivation are such internal factors as the desire for

autonomy and achievement. If you think about this in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, what is needed is more of a

focus on the higher-level needs that lead to self-actualization. The more typical monetary approaches all fall more towards

the base of the pyramid and fail to make employees feel truly satisfied at work. Effective recognition moves employees

14

Perez, S. (2012). Mobile Drives Adoption Of Social Media In 2012: Apps & Mobile Web Account For Majority Of Growth; Nearly Half Of

Social Media Users Access Sites On Smartphones. TechCrunch. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/03/mobile-drives-

adoption-of-social-media-in-2012-apps-mobile-web-account-for-majority-of-growth-nearly-half-of-social-media-users-access-sites-on-

smartphones/

further up that pyramid towards the peak of higher satisfaction.

Gostick and Elton suggest paying attention to the following 11 key indicators of employee satisfaction:

1. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day. 2. My performance is evaluated in a manner that makes me feel positive about working. 3. Conflicts are managed in a way that results in positive solutions. 4. My opinions seem to matter to my manager. 5. My manager shares all the information my coworkers and I need in order to feel part of the team. 6. I receive the information I need to do my job. 7. The organization has developed work/life policies that address my needs. 8. I trust my immediate manager. 9. During the past year, communication between leadership and employees has improved. 10. My manager does a good job of recognizing employee contributions. 11. I have recently received praise for my work.

Notice how few of those have anything to do with money? Gostick and Elton go on to note that the four basic building

blocks of establishing a carrot culture include the following:

Day-to-day recognition. These are small, frequent, but impactful signs that managers are recognizing employee

contributions, ranging from pats on the back, to handwritten notes, to team lunches, to small gifts.

Above-and-beyond recognition. When employees go that extra mile, you need to step up the recognition to be more formal

and celebratory.

Career recognition. Many organizations recognize anniversaries for length of service, but these are hugely underutilized

opportunities to highlight key achievements and cumulative contributions.

Celebration events. Find various milestones, whether by team, project or organization-wide that can serve as a catalyst for

celebrating achievements.

By paying attention not only to employee engagement but also satisfaction, companies can begin to build a carrot culture

that goes a long way towards improving retention.

Retention Secret #6: Gamification for Talent Management

Success

Realizing that 70% of American employees are disengaged from their work is one thing. Actually doing something about it is

another thing entirely. Of the many different ideas out there for boosting retention, one that has yet to receive much

attention is gamification, which means using game design elements in a non-game context. Obviously, this works extremely

well among generations raised in the relatively recent gaming culture, which might explain why it’s been slow to catch on.

Most senior HR leaders simply haven’t put gamification on their radar screens, but that’s beginning to change.

Remember how when you were a kid your parents and maybe even your teachers made chores and schoolwork or practicing

an instrument fun by turning them into games? Although the whole notion of play often gets socialized out of us, it’s still in

there. People want to have fun, and that’s the overall simple aim of gamification when applied to the workplace – making

work more fun. Talent management professionals can use it as well to both measure and pre-filter candidates, speed up the

onboarding process, and boost the effectiveness of training efforts. In short, gamification is the new frontier in talent

management, allowing the savvy HR leader to better engage, teach, entertain, and measure employees for the benefit of all

stakeholders.

The undisputed guru of gamification in the workplace is Mario Herger, the CEO, founder and partner of Enterprise

Gamification Consultancy LLC, a strategic consulting group focused on gamification, innovation, social business, and

intrapreneurship in the enterprise. Of the five books Herger has written about gamification in the workplace, one is entirely

focused on applying it to talent management: Gamification in Human Resources. In addition to writing and consulting,

Herger also speaks regularly about gamification in the workplace, so it’s worth checking his speaking schedule to see if you

can attend one of his upcoming presentations.15

One of Herger’s most interesting ideas for gamifying HR is what he calls the venture capital model of talent management.

Many managers fall prey to the “too much work, too little time” mindset that prevents them from giving employees the

room and training they need to really develop into their full potential. In this innovative approach, each manager begins with

a starting value for each direct report working for them. If one of their employees gets promoted, or is sent to a training, the

manager’s “talent portfolio” increases in value. This can then be further incentivized by a direct tie-in to year-end bonuses,

with the greater the increase in the manager’s talent portfolio, the greater the bonus. This simple idea of making a game of

talent management can do wonders for any organization.

This can also be structured to carry-over when an employee switches departments, and how they progress in their new

department. The first manager still benefits from increases to their talent portfolio even after the employee has moved to

another department, and hopefully experiences success and promotion there as well. What this does is take the focus off of

the fact that the manager is losing an employee who must also be replaced. Instead, the focus is on where will that

employee be able to do their best – with the original manager still benefitting as the employee continues to develop

wherever they may be in the company. Both the old and new managers will benefit from the employee’s successful

development.

The reason Herger calls it the venture capital model is because it’s more like the venture capital (VC) process. You know how

a VC company asks all kinds of incredibly detailed questions about a company before making a substantial commitment of

funding. Bringing that level of detail into the recruiting and hiring process shifts the focus from short-terms needs to longer-

term analysis of what potential value a new hire can bring over time. And isn’t that what we all really want from our talent

management efforts?

15

See http://www.marioherger.at/

Retention Secret #7: Open Book Management

It was in 1989 in an Inc. magazine article called “The Open-Book Managers” that the phrase open-book management was

used for the first time. It was a startling idea back then. In the early 1990s then-president Bill Clinton was presiding over a

national labor relations conference at which one of the early advocates of open-book management, Jack Stack (CEO of what

is now SRC Holdings), spoke about it. This is what Clinton had to say after the conference:

“…and the phrase…that made the biggest impression on me here was “open-book management.” If

we could do nothing other than convince people that somehow the only way to get everybody on the

same team is to give them the same information, the same capacity to evaluate the information, I

think that would be a terrific thing.”

Clinton’s reaction to the idea of open-book management is a concise summary of why I’m including it as one of the secrets

of employee retention. Think about it this way: If you want people to really feel like they’re valued members of your

corporate team, what better way to do that than open up the books to them? It’s a powerful way to build solidarity and

loyalty in your workforce. In short, it’s one strategy to get your employees thinking more like owners than just workers.

Your company pays attention to key metrics and financial data to constantly assess if it’s heading in the right direction. It’s

worth remembering that part of what moves your company in any direction, whether the right one or the wrong one, is

based on the collective actions of everyone in your workforce. If you start sharing some the key metrics in an open-book

approach, your employees will start not only paying attention, but figuring out how their actions can help push things in the

right direction.

Here’s a great example of how it can work: A travel-management company wanted to leverage an open-book approach into

better performance. It came up with a key metric called direct profitability, made up of site revenue minus direct site costs

that it began sharing with employees. In a surprisingly short amount of time, front-line travel agents were coming up with all

kinds of ideas for how to move that key metric in the right direction. One figured out how to recoup more than $180k from

vendors due to hotel and flight no-shows. Each branch of the company has specific profit targets they should hit. In the

three branches where the open-book approach was taken, profit targets were exceeded by 10%, 17% and 20% for a total of

more than $1.7 million in additional earnings. Meanwhile, none of the branches lacking the open-book approach made their

profit targets.16 Those are impressive results.

With results like that, you’d think there might be a tidal wave of companies adopting the open-book management approach,

but a 2012 article in The Economist estimates that worldwide only about 4,000 companies have picked up on it.17 What’s the

16

Fotsch, B. and Case, J. (2014). Share Your Financials to Engage Employees. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from

https://hbr.org/2014/06/share-your-financials-to-engage-employees/

17 Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/news/business/21565610-case-stripping-away-secrecy-surrounding-firms-finances-

corporate-burlesque

hang-up?

First and foremost is the very long-standing tradition of corporate executives, whether in public or private firms, holding

their cards very close to the vest. Some are undoubtedly just used to doing it that way while others may be fearful of

employees exiting the company with sensitive data. Given the kinds of results that many companies have seen from the

open-book approach, it seems to me that more CEOs need to get over it and just do it.

John Case, author of Open-Book Management, puts it this way: "The bottom-line advantage is that it focuses employee

attention on what matters to a business: money. People have talked about various goals--Total Quality Management (TQM),

teamwork and so forth--but if you don't put the business numbers out there for employees to see, those objectives are

meaningless. When you put the numbers out there, you're involving your employees in the guts of your business and

helping them see how they can play a role in the business' success."18

What really makes it a no-brainer is that a company doesn’t have to suddenly divulge everything all at once. Given the

example of the travel company shared above, your company can find a way to dip its toes in the open-book waters as an

experiment to see how it goes.

Retention Secret#8: Participatory Decision-Making

Everyone knows that feeling like you’re a valuable member of team can go a long ways towards engaging and retaining

employees. That’s why more and more employers have adopted a teamwork approach to many aspects of work in modern

organizations. And yet some organizations eventually kind of give up on the teamwork concept because it ends up feeling

like too much work. I think this is largely due to a lack of skill and knowledge around what goes into good decision-making

processes. It’s one thing to say that everyone’s input is important, but it’s another thing entirely to take a group of people

and have them all participate in making a decision.

Imagine this scenario: You’re in an important team meeting about improving the profitability of one of your company’s

product lines. The group begins by spending a good chunk of the time brainstorming all the different reasons why

profitability is stagnating or declining along with all the ways it could be improved. Ideas are being generated so fast it’s hard

to get them all written down. Then, the team leader says it’s time to choose which three of these many ideas will be the

components of a turnaround plan for the product line.

People start stating their opinions about why this one or that one should be chosen. It takes a long time for everyone to say

what they think. Pretty soon it’s clear that people are getting antsy, and the group is no closer to a decision because

everyone has their own ideas about what should be chosen. It seems like there’s very little if any common ground. The

group is stuck, tired and frustrated. The turnaround plan for the product line is put on hold and eventually falls to the

wayside with no solutions and no results.

18

McGarvey, R. (1998). Open-Book Test. Entrepreneur. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/15876

Sound familiar? Once the brainstorming is done, things all too often grind to a screeching halt when it comes to taking all

that input and bringing the process to closure by facilitating the making of an actual decision.

A big part of the problem is that people just don’t understand the actual process that groups go through when making

participatory decisions. And if you don’t know what to expect, then you can get completely derailed when things feel like

they aren’t going very smoothly.

The first thing to understand is that the participatory, group decision-making process is made up of two sequential

processes. The first part of the process is divergent because everyone is contributing a wide variety of ideas. That’s the

brainstorming process with which most people are familiar. The next part is the convergent part of the process, where you

narrow things back down to an actual decision point. It’s just the way the dynamics work in any group decision-making

process. The problem is that transitioning from the divergent part of the process to the convergent part is difficult, and is

often referred to as the “groan zone.” It’s less likely to throw your group completely off if people can recognize it as a

necessary part of the process.

There’s also no way around the fact that in order to engage the fullness of the participatory decision-making process,

everyone will be better off with some facilitation training. Some of the essential skillsets that should be imparted in basic

facilitator training for all employees include the following:

● Facilitative listening ● Facilitating open dialogues ● Alternatives to discussion ● Chartpack recording skills ● Brainstorming techniques ● Managing long lists ● Dealing with difficulties ● Formulating feasible agendas

Each one of those skillsets is made up of a number of different tools or techniques that equip people for better group

decision-making. If you take the time to train employees in facilitation and group decision-making, not only will they be

better equipped to participate in and even lead group decision-making, they’ll also be more likely to stick around because

they feel like their participation is valued.

Retention Secret #9: Promoting From Within

It happens over and over again in organizations everywhere. You need to hire a key position in the company and you

conduct the usual search, get a ton of external applications, sort through them with all due diligence, and select who you

think will do the best job. Then several months into the new hire, it becomes apparent that it’s just not going to be a good

fit. You limp along for a year until finally things come to a head and you let the person go. Back to square one. It’s a very

frustrating process to go through, especially if it happens repeatedly. What went wrong? Any number of things might be to

blame, but the one I want to zero in on here is the business case for promoting from within.

Back in 2012 The Wall Street Journal ran an article about a study that compared the costs of hiring externally versus

promoting from within. Assistant Professor Matthew Bidwell at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, found that

those external hires are paid 18-20% more than internal hires while at the same time receive lower performance ratings.19

This means the company winds up not only spending more on the labor cost, but also gets less return on that investment in

the form of lower performance.

The study also found that those external hires were more likely to be laid off or leave the job by their own choice, which

then invokes all the substantial costs of making yet another replacement hire. Why does this happen? Even though those

external hires may come with more education and experience, what they so often lack is the fit with a brand new

organizational culture, and companies are notorious for underestimating how long it takes for a new hire to get up to speed.

The internal candidates already know the company and how it works. It’s a huge advantage that translates into better

performance and much more cost-effective use of precious resources.

When you hire from the outside, you have to make sure your compensation and benefits package are competitive with the

entire industry, when in reality your company may not be in the upper echelon of those figures. You can often wind up

boosting all of that much higher than needs to be the case at your company. By promoting from within, you have the

opportunity to keep all of that more in line with the reality at your organization rather than trying to compete industry-

wide.20

Boris Groysberg, a Harvard Business School professor wrote a book several years ago called Chasing Stars: The Myth of

Talent and the Portability of Performance. He examined what happens when top-notch financial analysts switch firms. For

whatever reason, changing companies seemed to make for an immediate and lasting decline. What made them a star at one

company doesn’t necessarily translate to a new organization.21

Cost savings can also be realized from several other aspects, such as not needing to do extensive external advertising for a

position, reducing the overall time spent on the hiring process, and spending less time and resources for onboarding and

training.

Finally, if employees can clearly see the possibilities of being promoted within the company, they’ll be much more likely to

19

Silverman, R. E. (2012). Is it Better to Promote from Within? The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304750404577320000041035504?mod=googlenews_wsj&mg=reno64-

wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304750404577320000041035504.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglene

ws_wsj

20 Marinescu, I. (2014). Top 3 Benefits of Promoting from Within. CareerBuilder. Retrieved from

http://thehiringsite.careerbuilder.com/2014/02/14/top-3-benefits-promoting-within/

21 Adams, S. (2012). Why Promoting From Within Usually Beats Hiring From Outside. Forbes. Retrieved from

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/04/05/why-promoting-from-within-usually-beats-hiring-from-outside/

stay put, which is why promoting from within is such an important secret of retention. It can be a powerful motivating force

for employees to do better.

All of this isn’t to say that promoting from within will always work. If not done with care, it can be just as disastrous as any

other bad hire. If you force the hiring of internal candidates, you run the risk of promoting someone who doesn’t have the

right skillset for the new position. Your organization might also have policies in place that give preferential treatment

according to seniority, which may have little or nothing to do with who is the best person for the position. You would also

want to make sure that the internal candidate has the management and leadership potential needed to thrive.

Promoting from within can be tricky, but considering the benefits of reduced hiring costs, reduced compensation costs, and

the likelihood of better performance, it’s worth the effort of doing it right at your company.

Retention Secret #10: Employee Engagement and Climate

Assessments

I’ve written previously about how important it is that employees feel like they are valued members of tight-knit team. This

can be accomplished through such practices as participatory decision-making that not only solicits input from employees,

but actively engages them in taking that input from the divergent thinking phase into the convergent decision-point phase of

the process. Another way to increase employee engagement and retention is through periodic employee engagement

surveys or workplace climate assessments that really uncover what’s happening with employees and how they view various

aspects of the organization. Doing this effectively is a serious task that requires a substantial commitment of time and

energy.

Far too often, organizations do have some form of annual employee survey, but it often takes the same route as the tired

old strategic planning process, the result of which is a plan that sits on a shelf collecting dust. No one takes that kind of

process seriously, and with good reason. Measuring employee engagement can become a vital tool that reveals all sorts of

ways that your organization can do better by its employees, which will not only help you achieve the company’s vision, but

also retain employees to be a part of it.

I’ve also written about the highly successful PM system overhaul that happened at software firm Autodesk. What’s

important to know about that case study, is that it was the company’s annual employee engagement survey that revealed

how broken the PM system was in the first place. Jonathan Levy, Director of Training and Organizational Development at

Autodesk, had this to say about it: “…this is something taken very seriously throughout the organization. In fact, among our

8,000 employees, the response rate on this survey is always at least 92% or higher, which is pretty amazing. Part of the

reason for that high response rate is because the company, right up to the very top leaders, uses the data from that survey

to make changes in the organization. The company is committed to taking that input and acting on it.”

The benefits of doing a robust employee engagement assessment can only be realized if your company takes the

information generated and actually does something with it. Autodesk does exactly that, and isn’t afraid to make far-reaching

changes based on the findings.

There are many different ways to conduct this kind of organizational review among employees, including the following:

● Paper survey instruments ● Online survey instruments ● Focus groups ● One-on-one interviews

What you’re really assessing is how work happens in your organization in order to identify problem areas that can then be

fixed. You’ll need to form a solid committee of people committed to figuring out what areas to explore and how to present

the questions and get the feedback. But even more importantly, this kind of effort must come with support from the very

top of the organization, not just in terms of engaging the process, but a strong commitment to act upon the information

gathered.

No matter what kind of survey design and questions you come up with, the most essential feature of the entire effort must

be complete anonymity must be offered for some part of the process. If you use focus groups and interviews, you also need

to have an additional survey element in which people can openly speak their minds without fear of repercussions.

Developing a robust employee climate or engagement assessment process can allow your organization to not only identify

potential problem areas before they become very real crises, but also potential solutions to such problems as part of the

assessment. When employees see that the organization is not only committed to soliciting this input but also acting on it,

morale, retention, and productivity will all be significantly enhanced. That makes all the time and resources spent on the

process more than worth the effort.

Ideas for Survey Items

You should tailor your own employee engagement surveys and climate assessments to the specific needs of your

organization, but it always helps to get the wheels turning in the right direction by taking a look at the kinds of questions

other organizations have asked. Also keep in mind that you may change the content from time to time in order to ask

questions about specific projects, initiatives or change efforts that are taking place in order to get focused feedback on those

items. Below is a sampling of items from a HR-Survey.com22 to get you started:

Adaptability: The Company is willing to accept change; I am able to take on new tasks

I can step in for co-workers when needed; Managers encourage employees to adjust to changing situations through

22

http://www.hr-survey.com/EmployeeSurveyQuestions.htm

innovation and creativity; Management is able to adjust rapidly to new situations; My Department is effective in adjusting to

changes; My Department is open to doing things in a new way

Benefits: I think the benefits offered by the Company meet my needs; The Company offers a comprehensive benefits

package; The Company offers better benefits than other companies; I recognize my benefits are part of an employee total

compensation program; The benefits offered provide security for me and my family; The premiums for benefits are

reasonable; The benefits statement I received was clear and easy to understand; The Benefits department provides accurate

and helpful information.

Business Focus: The Company continues to grow and expand its services; The Company engages in various initiatives to

focus on its business strategy; The Leadership understands the different business climates in which the Company operates;

My Co-Workers understand their job roles and functions and how they contribute to the success of the company; Setbacks

are seen as challenges and opportunities to grow.

Career Development: There is opportunity for me to advance at the Company; My Supervisor has given me good feedback

on how I can advance my career at the Company; My Supervisor has taken an interest in my career development; Leaders

are developed from within the Company; I can advance at the Company; I have career opportunities available to me; The

Company offers an excellent leadership development program; I am continuously learning and trying to improve myself; I

am more efficient in my job now compared to when I started; I have been given more responsibilities since when I started;

There is equal opportunity for advancement at the Company; Job promotions are awarded fairly and without bias

Change: The Company is pro-active in implementing changes to address challenges and opportunities; I feel I have a positive

attitude toward change and am looking forward to doing new things; My Supervisor motivates others to follow new

processes; My Supervisor has a positive attitude when new changes are implemented; My Supervisor remains calm during

organizational changes; My Department tries to find new and better ways to do things; My Department is effective in

adjusting to changes; Management is able to implement a vision and mission; Managers are effective in addressing

resistance to change; The Leadership involves employees when making significant changes; The Leadership at the Company

is effective in developing strategies to meet new business challenges and opportunities.

Commitment: The organizational culture enhances employee commitment; I would recommend the Company as a great

place to work; I would recommend working at the Company to my friends; Employees are held accountable for their work;

Employees are committed to improving quality of services; All employees are committed to the success of the company;

Employees are committed to serving the Company; My co-workers are committed to the success of our department; My

Department is committed to customer service; Labor and Management are committed to working together.

Communication: Employees at the Company regularly share and exchange ideas; At the Company my opinions count; I can

speak freely to my supervisor on a variety of topics; I am able to communicate freely with any employee; Co-workers share

information and new ideas throughout the company; Co-Workers are willing to listen to my ideas; My Supervisor keeps me

informed about important issues; My Supervisor is willing to listen to my ideas; There is good communication between me

and my supervisor; My Supervisor listens to me; My Supervisor works to improve communications in all directions; I know

what is expected of me at work; I have enough information to do my job well; Managers communicate frequently and

honestly about issues affecting employees; Managers keep me informed and up-to-date; Meetings are usually chaired by

competent and articulate individuals who can effectively communicate ideas and information; My Manager is available to

me when I have questions or need help; Leadership at the Company communicates frequently with employees; The

company does an excellent job communicating changes or decisions that affect employees; Goals, objectives, and strategies

are clearly communicated; I am satisfied with my own communication and interpersonal skills; The company directors give

staff a clear picture of the direction in which the Company is headed; There are no barriers to open and efficient

communication; Communication is good between departments.

Corporate Culture: The Company is a good community neighbor; The Company is a good steward of the environment and

protects natural resources; The Company measures success of culture change initiatives through the Employee Opinion

survey; The Company culture promotes employees to stay within the organization; The Company supports honest two-way

communication between Managers and Employees; I have a sense of security in my job; The Company new employee

orientation includes information about our culture; Employees at the Company regularly share and exchange ideas; Open

and honest communication is an important part of the culture at the Company; Employees are valued as an asset to the

Company; Employees are free to express their concerns and complaints; Employees are generally friendly and willing to help

you if needed; Employees work hard to accomplish goals and objectives; Management at the Company is competent and

ethical; Managers foster an organizational culture that promotes learning and creativity; The Company respects my dignity

and recognizes my contributions; Others treat me with respect at work; The Company fosters an environment where diverse

individuals can work together effectively; The organizational culture at the Company enhances teamwork; Our culture

encourages high performance and process improvement; Our culture promotes a balance between work and family life.

The HR-Survey.com website referenced (see end note #20) goes on all the way through the entire alphabet with various

topics and plenty of ideas for each one.

Conclusion

What you’ve read about in this white paper are ten of the best-kept secrets when it comes to boosting employee retention

at your company in the 21st century. There are, of course, lots of other things you can do to improve retention. The content

in this white paper is meant to serve only as a starting point. However, even if you took only half of the ten secrets shared

here to heart and made them happen at your company, there’s no doubt in my mind that your problems with retention

would largely disappear.

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