What are Employers Doing to Retain Good Employees? (average, alternative, interview)

[chickenfriedbananas]

Originally Posted by Carolina Knight

Employees are the image of their direct supervisor. If the direct supervisor teaches and works productively, effectively, and positively, his or her subordinates will catch on. If he or she is not doing a good job to keep his or her area productive, leaves his subordinates demoralized to do the tasks at hand efficiently and productively, and results lag, then he or she needs to be removed from the surroundings.

It's not just the direct supervisors, though. You can have good direct supervisors, but if the company has sh*tty management above the directs and if they have awful pay and nothing that the directs can offer their subordinates, then it doesn't matter how enlightened and forward thinking direct supervisors are. Companies are in a competitive marketplace. A lot of companies out there have idiotic executive management who embrace the commodity model for human resource recruitment/retention. They'll get their @sses kicked every time by a company that actually sees their employees as assets rather than commodities.

I'm dealing with this right now. I value my employees and try to give them what they deserve but I work for a bunch of tools who can't see an inch beyond what's in front of them. I've been fortunate enough to hire some good employees but I wouldn't be surprised if they leave within a matter of months, and I wouldn't blame them a bit. I want what's best for them, even if it means leaving us.

[Arianator]

Originally Posted by 313Weather

As long as there remains a huge supply of unemployed workers for them to choose from, employers have no incentive to go out of their way to retain employees...

(especially in low-wage service industries)

That's exactly the case where I work, a local restaurant. I've been there less than 3 years and I've seen about 15 bus boys come and go, and at least that many servers have left and been replaced.

On my first day I was handed some paperwork to fill out, given an apron, and then was left to my own devices. The training is absolutely inadequate there for the bussers, especially considering most go to the nearby high school during the day. We essentially have to train each other.

The poor training and horrendously inefficient management are the reason most leave within a few months. I often have to sit around for 20-30 minutes waiting to be told I can go when there is absolutely nothing to do. I could get off at 10 one night and 11:15 the next, even if business is exactly the same, just depends on the manager's mood that night.

They are probably the most tolerant managers you'd ever see though. I've only ever seen or heard of three employees being fired. One was a dishwasher who refused to wash dishes by hand because the machine broke. The second was a server who came to work confused after using drugs, and the third was a busser who was caught stealing tips. Seriously though, you can miss 2 or 3 nights a month without even calling to let them know you won't be there.

Doesn't bother them, though. There's a good supply of workers around here. There's an almost infinite supply of potential bussers/hosts/hostesses at the high schools. Servers are almost as easy to find.

[ackmondual]

Short answer, many places don't because they don't care, they can't recognize good employees, or it's just too expensive to do so.

Studies on employee retention show that pay isn’t the reason most people quit. They quit because they:
1• Don’t get the tools and training they need to do the job.
2• Don’t get opportunities for advancement.
3• Something else about the job is hard for them to handle.

1• AFAIK, employers are afraid if they do this, newly minted employees will jump ship as they're now attractive to other employers. The current company could give them a raise to keep this from happening, but it's probably too expensive for them to do, so scrap plans for training altogether

2• I've seen this first hand. After a performance review, a good employee got the highest 6% pay raise. Another company that he interviewed out of the blue ended up giving him a 50% pay raise. Most other factors were about equal or would be compensated from this, so he jumped ship. IIRC, he was making $60K at the time, so that was certainly no chump change.

3• I'll jump on the bandwagon who cite bad bosses here.

I had one job where our project manager texts a coworker on a Friday saying if he doesn't come back on Monday, then he's not coming back ever. There was a lot of pressure, bureaucracy, and mismanagement above him that no health insurance would help with that. AFAIK, the guy was in his 50s, and all of that stress would've been just plain bad for him.

At another position, this one 26 year old had a father who was a partner in our parent company. As such, he was handed the position, and couldn't get fired. He was functionally a manager, even though our existing manager knew the ropes. A few people left, with one of them confiding in me it was because of him how he tattled about us doing non work things when he'd just play iPhone games, used his workstation to surf, and yakked on and on about his girlfriend

[rgarjr]

Originally Posted by 313Weather

As long as there remains a huge supply of unemployed workers for them to choose from, employers have no incentive to go out of their way to retain employees...

(especially in low-wage service industries)

I agree as long as there's a lot of unemployed and not enough jobs. I don't think employers will do anything. If anything they will take advantage of this and expect more.

[s1alker]

In high paying, highly skilled occupations companies do often provide many perks to keep good talent from jumping ship. But if it's a low paying unskilled job they have no real incentive to keep you around because you're easily replaceable. If you have a highly valuable skill set companies will be looking for you rather than the other way around.

[theluckygal]

In addition to the ones you have mentioned, there are other reasons too.

Location
In one of my previous jobs a lot of people quit because the company was located in a remote, small town with no job opportunities for their spouse. It was difficult to survive on one income & expect the spouse to give up their career.

Trends in industry
Also, I have seen people leaving jobs because the company was using outdated technologies (mostly in IT industry) & the employees did not want to become obsolete so they went for companies that would keep up with changes in the industry & projects that would reflect well on their resume.

Work environment
This is very important. If the culture of your company doesn't encourage good behavior, peoples skills & shun new people then the employee retention rate will go down. People spend 8-10hrs each day at work & want to feel welcome at workplace, not bullied, harassed, pushed around or ignored. Its not good for the morale. Simple things add up like not being invited to group lunches, ignoring emails, refusing to share knowledge. Companies have policies about it but some of them dont enforce it & later wonder why their employees are leaving so quickly.

[sjdemak]

A salary with some benefits. Some flexibility so you can take your kids to soccer practice. Not much else, a good employee is just like a loyal dog. Allow the dog to afford food, shelter, and take care of its offspring. It then will serve you well.

[gardener34]

The last 2 places and the place I currently work: NOTHING is or was done to keep good employees.
Our state has one of the most chronically high unemployment rates in the U.S. and the employers know it. Most places are revolving doors.
The large corps hate the american worker and they want to hire foreign cheaper labor sources as much as possible.

Agreed, the most times workers leave because a. they are really overworked and underpaid for that work. Many people can handle a lot of work if they are compensated, but if a company cheaps out, no way! The company fires or lays off, and the rest of the workers get to pick up the slack. And there are so many hours in a day you know. It gets to the point where the work cannot and does not get done. Workers think that their company is setting them up for failure and bail rather than stay and get fired for not being able to do the impossible job.

[RVD90277]

Most studies actually get this wrong. The most reputable studies use a method called "conjoint analysis" to get down to the true reasons why people take jobs and people leave jobs. The reason why standard questionnaires don't work is because of employees don't want to appear to be greedy so they tend to undermine salary and increase the importance of things such as team fit, company goals, etc.

In short, the reason why people take jobs is by far because of salary and location. Team fit, company vision, CEO, work environment, etc. have almost no impact on people taking the job.

The reasons why people leave jobs is because of management (their direct manager usually but sometimes their skip level) and pay. Again, team fit, company vision, and ceo have very little impact on people leaving jobs.

As for retention, most of the large companies that I worked for had a method of evaluating performance and classifying employees into buckets. The highest tier got the most raises but uses raises were capped. The best companies do not cap raises and will give massive bonuses to those who are superstars. They understand that pay is what is going to retain people even though employees will almost never admit it.

[thatguydownsouth]

Its an employers market, they don't have to do much of anything to retain good employees. Until we hit the next "Shiny thing" in the economy its going to stay this way. We need a new Automobile, Internet, Software....something to spur the economy.