It has been said that your most valuable asset walks out of the doors every single day and you can but hope they come back the next day – your employees!
Keeping employees from leaving a company could be as simple as engaging with them, including them, helping them develop new skills and listening to their ideas. While that sounds deceptively simple, not every leader finds it easy to act when they hear that advice.
Get the facts
Understanding Your Team’s Pulse
Before diving into solutions, it’s essential to pinpoint the problem areas. Are employees considering leaving? If so, who’s most likely to exit and why? By asking the right questions and gathering data, you can identify potential risks and take proactive steps to boost employee retention.
The self-audit list below may be a good place to start assessing how much anyone on your team may be tempted to leave your team or the company.
Completing the checklist requires you to answer yes or no to a series of statements as they would apply to each employee on your team. Once you have completed the assessment, add up the number of “no” answers you have for each employee and use the Score guide at the top of the page to determine whether each employee would be in the low, medium, or high risk from an employee retention perspective.
The next risk to assess is the impact it would have on your project or team if that particular employee decided to leave. Look at each employee (each column) and consider the unique skills and talents that he or she brings to the project and rate the impact that his/her (unplanned) voluntary departure could have – low, medium, or high.
Map it
Where to start? Map the answers from the self-audit sheet onto the graphic below. The risk that each employee could decide to leave on the horizontal access and the impact on the project, in case that employee did leave, on the vertical axis.
Then write down the names of employees that would be in the “green zone” vs the “yellow zone” vs the “orange zone”.
The orange area requires immediate and high focus, and the yellow zone does require focus, but less so. The green zone requires maintenance. Do not assume that because a retention risk is low today it would stay that way for years. Many talented employees get calls and offers from other companies and recruiters all the time! This means you should never stop reminding them why you are happy that they are on your team! And don’t only tell them, show them! Celebrate milestones and successes, recognize them in meaningful ways, and show them how working with your team or company is the right long-term strategy for them. Make sure you offer them advantages towards their overall life goals, their career goals, their work-life balance goals, etc.
Take action
Once you know where to focus, use the last worksheet as a checklist for areas where you can lower the risk that someone may consider leaving the team.
Use one checklist per employee and make sure that you have conversations with each employee about the areas where you either did not know the answers (looking at the self-audit worksheet) or you have not said anything to an employee about a particular area.
When it doesn’t work
Unexpected departures can disrupt teams and projects. That’s why it’s crucial to have a strong bench of talent ready to step up. By investing in employee development and creating clear career paths, you can mitigate the impact of turnover and ensure business continuity.
Taking proactive steps to assess employee retention risk is essential for organizational success. While it doesn’t guarantee zero turnover, it empowers you to identify potential departures early and take steps to improve employee satisfaction and engagement. By investing in your team’s growth and well-being, you’ll create a more stable and productive work environment.
The Rethink Shelf 