HOW TO HELP YOUR MANAGERS INCREASE STAFF RETENTION

“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.”

– Bill Gates

One of the main questions I like to ask business owners in regards to their managers is;

“Are your managers importers or exporters of talent?”

Typically, a reoccurring weak point for businesses is holding onto new recruits. New staff tend to have about a 30-40% per cent attrition rate, and the level of commitment from the once happy and enthusiastic new starter often nose dives tragically within the first 12 months unless they’re actively engaged.

Ensuring these new workers are part of a team, and are being trained and inspired to perform is important. That’s why your managers play such a vital role in staff retention. In order to establish whether or not your managers are supporting your company’s retention efforts you need to get them to answer an important question very honestly… “Are you an unpleasant manager?”

The absolute bottom line when it comes to Employee Retention is this: The quality of management that an employee receives is directly reflected through your employee retention statistics. The hard truths are that people leave managers more often than they leave companies or jobs. A good manager supervises staff, a great manager is constantly managing through retention strategies because they know that the quality of their management skills is the key factor in employee retention.

Employees who feel strongly engaged with their employer are less likely to leave. With the cost of turnover anywhere from 50 – 150 per cent of a staff’s annual salary, few businesses can afford not to seriously consider how they can better capture the hearts and minds of their employees. It’s really important to consider how involved your staff are with the strategic direction of the business. Do you share your plans of the future with your staff in a way that is meaningful to them? Do your staff feel that they have a real connection with the business and its leaders?

The quality of strong leadership is not a “nice to have” quality but an essential one in any company. There is a recognition that extraordinary results can be achieved if people are

provided with the right environment to achieve their potential. One of the key drivers that turns a good company into a great company is when managers learn how to seamlessly achieve all of the business objectives through the efforts of a dedicated team that are being led in a powerful way on a daily basis.

The quality of leadership at your company will directly impact your business results. Without question. Full stop.

We know already that money is not the MAIN influencer that drives talent out your door and straight over to the competitor. So you can’t ignore the hard facts that for the most part, your staff are leaving because of something their manager does or doesn’t do… something they say or don’t say.

Without a doubt, in any organisation, it’s the manager that has the single greatest influence over the employee’s decision to perform, to stay, and in the unfortunate scenarios can also cause them to leave. To put it simply, it’s the managers that make people stay and it’s also the manager’s that make people leave.

Good Managers wanting to be Great managers need to:

1. Be approachable – visible, friendly and helpful
2. Communicate effectively, regularly and use many avenues to get the message out. Remember sometimes staff need to hear the message more than once to really understand it.
3. Meet as a team regularly
4. Allow employees to make mistakes and learn
5. Look for opportunities to recognise effort and results
6. Give credit where credit is due
7. Be knowledgeable – and share your knowledge If you have concerns about employee retention, spend as much time on your people managers and what they are saying and doing with their people as you can.

Managers retain staff start by effective communication. They take every opportunity to communicate with their staff. They communicate very clear expectations to the employee. They share the company’s goals with the team and they share their picture of what constitutes success for the employee in expected deliverables and objectives of the individual staff member including the performance expectations of their job.

These managers provide frequent feedback and make the employee feel valued. They let the employee become aware of the role they are playing in the company as a whole and really connects the employee to the greater vision and aligns the employee’s goals to the business goals of the company. When an employee completes an exchange with a manager who retains staff, they will walk away feeling empowered, enabled, and confident in their ability to get the job done. They will be motivated and enthusiastic to get their job done.

How to Help Your Managers With Employee Retention

Key employee retention is critical to the long term health and success of your business. Business owners agree that retaining your best employees ensures customer satisfaction, product sales, satisfied staff, and deep company specific knowledge and valuable learnings.

Upskilling your Managers in Employee Retention

Develop your Managers and measure them on their Employee Retention results. Invest in and provide mentoring in core retention skills for the Managers who are committed to the long term outcomes of your business and their own professional development.

These should include:

1. Integrated performance management including goal setting.
2. How to Give and receive feedback.
3. How to Recognise and value employees.
4. How to Coach employee performance.
5. How to Handle employee complaints and problems.
6. How to create a motivating work environment.
7. How to hold development discussions with employees.

Hold regular meetings with your managers to provide management development coaching and feedback. You can assist managers to improve their overall management style and skills.

Almost every committed manager can increase their ability to retain employees by developing their management skills. Most of the great managers I have worked with were very open to up skill and get access to powerful strategies to assist them in the challenging and sometimes fragile role of people management.

Leaders who can attract AND retain top talent in organisations are the new currency in Business. How are yours stacking up?

Written by Julie Faddoul, Recruitment Manager – Executive and Commercial Team.