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• Actions Managers Can Do During This Recession to Retain Employees for Later

Actions Managers Can Do During This Recession to Retain Employees for Later

written on March 11, 2009 by Kenyon Mau

My fellow COSE MindSpring expert, Michele Ridella is right.  In her latest COSE MindSpring entry entitled "Don't Neglect the People That Support You", Michele mentioned the findings of a recent survey indicating that a majority of those employees asked would seriously consider leaving their current employer after the economy recovers.  The actual total seems to vary depending on the poll taken, but the basic concept is dead on.  When the economy turns for the better, the recruiting wars will heat up once again.

What that means for you the business owner is a double-edged sword.  It's nice to know when you can afford to expand; they will be a large pool of candidates just waiting to leave their current employer.  The problem is YOU could be one of those employers employees want to leave.  The question is do you want to lose your good employees later?  Do you want to line the pockets of head hunters while they spend your money finding your replacement and you lose valuable time and money with an open position?  If you are like most business owners, your answer is no.  My question to you is what are you doing now to retain your best employees?  When I have asked employers this, many responded by saying they have no money to spend on things to make their employees happy.  My response to that is do you have to spend anything at all?

A key point of the recruiting process most hiring managers miss is learning what motivates their incoming new hires.  Learning this key bit of information during the hiring process will be critical for your ability to retain your new hire.  Why?  Because once you know what motivates your new employee, you can fill their "emotional back account" with positive "deposits" that will go a long way to making them feel valued and you can do much of this without spending tons of money to do it.

Whether you know that information or are in the process of learning it, here are a few very inexpensive ideas/themes that will make your employees feel good about sticking around your place:

1.  Acknowledge a job well done by them.  People love to feel recognition for their hard work.  Employee satisfaction surveys constantly list this as one of the top three reasons employees stay.  Make sure they know how much you appreciate their input.  Pass along a compliment a customer made about them.  Many times a simple word of thanks will do it.

2.  Knowing how they want to develop as employees.  Taking an interesting in your employee's career gives you a wonderful opportunity to create challenging work, geared towards making them a better employee for you.  Just showing them you want to help them to develop with you can do wonders for loyalty.  They can see what is in it for them!

3.  Communicate constantly.  So many good things come out of having an ongoing dialogue with all your direct reports.  If you have managers reporting to you, make sure they are doing likewise with their people.  This means open communication, which includes being honest with a sense of how to be honest with people.  It means asking employees what they need to be successful, and then getting it for them.  It means developing the highest level of trust you can get with each of them.  Without proper communication, it is a harder to get that high degree of trust.

These are just some starter themes a spending-wary business owner can implement.  None of these ideas would cost a lot of money to employ.  Granted, these ideas require a genuine approach for maximum impact.  Employees are people.  They know when they are being "handled".  So these non-financial ideas do not come without some degree of difficulty for someone who is not a "people person".  However, the basic idea is simply beginning a dialogue with your employees, or getting on your direct reports to start developing these rapports with their employees to show them they are valued.  If they do not feel they are valued by you, they probably feel they can stick it out for a while where they are.  But once the market turns for the better, they are vulnerable to leave you.  For your good to great employees, that could be expensive for you.  Remember what Michele talked about.  You don't want to be in that majority of business owners employees want to leave.  It could be expensive.