by John Carroll

            The recent downturn in the economy doesn’t seem to have hurt the need for finding and keeping good people in your organization.  In fact, several industries, such as the hospitality industry, are still calling it a crisis. In Florida, for example, Disney is reportedly recruiting in Puerto Rico and elsewhere, offering airfare and other enticements for those who commit to a year of service in some positions.
            While this is not news to organizations which have been feeling the pinch for several years, it seems to have spawned an entire cottage industry of experts who specialize in retention strategies. Perhaps every crisis does have an opportunity attached.
            Here’s the secret to attracting and keeping good people (are you ready?): be the kind of leader and lead the kind of organization which deserves to find and keep good people.
            If your service to clients and customers is bush-league, you’re moving toward the bottom of the barrel in terms of the help you get. If your benefits are ho-hum and your compensation is less than the average in your market for the positions and skills required, you’ll be attracting the lower half or third of the talent available. If your managers are old-school autocratic and marvel at mediocrity, chasing good people away will be one of your organization’s top accomplishments.
            Do you need an expert to tell you when you’re doing the right things to find and keep good people? Yes, but only if you don’t know how to read the signs and listen.

Reading the signs
            You have a profit and loss statement that tells you the story by numbers of how you’re doing this month and year to date. It likely tells you about revenues, costs coming directly from your product or service, your labor and payroll, and general overhead costs. It probably doesn’t have a line for retention of your people or how many you’ve had come and go year to date or in the past month.
            To read the signs, create simple measurements to track how many people have come in and gone out. Check your current list of employees and find the average length of service. Use that number as a baseline and check it periodically to see whether it’s going up or down each quarter. Keep track of new hires year to date. Count departures by reasons for termination and years of experience with the company that you’ve lost year to date.
            As someone once said, “What gets measured gets done.” Put measures on your team’s retention and related areas. You’ll be able to see trends, drill down to root causes and take appropriate action.

Listening
            “What do you want to do about the person we think is stealing from the company?” You may shudder to hear this question for two reasons. The first is the obvious one: employees are expressly forbidden to take the company’s property without proper authorization. The second is that the penalty for theft is termination, which means that by finding such a situation, you’ll also have to find someone to replace the guilty party.
            If your immediate response is that the missing company property is minimal and you can overlook it this time, you’re not listening. That original question translates to this question: “Here’s your chance to maintain the standards of the company and walk your talk. So what are you going to do? Will you choose to make me proud to work here?” If your answer is something other than upholding the company’s values and integrity, you send a very clear message to everyone. The message is, “Yes, we’ll compromise our core values in certain situations. Sorry, but you’ll have to swallow your pride”
            You can listen by asking your people what it is that makes people want to come to work at your place of business. Ask them what is the least appealing thing about working on your team or in your organization. Give them an opportunity to tell you the best and the worst aspects of working here. Do this with your top performers as well as your weakest team members. You’ll know when you have enough information to take action.

            Believe it or not, people want to work for an organization they can respect and hold in high esteem. Why do the best companies find and keep the best people? Because they see the signs, they listen to their people, they stick to their values and they are the kind of companies where good people want to work.

© 2001 John Carroll All rights reserved.