Employers today hear so much about the importance of employee retention – “Make your company the best place to work,” “Improve employee engagement,” “Invest in your people”… Spam (the emails, not the meat-like-product) fills our inboxes daily with the latest and greatest engagement and reward tools. Each opportunity appears at face value to be the magic elixir to keep employees with our company longer. However, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics releasing its recent Employee Tenure Summary revealing median employee tenure as 4.6 years, reality speaks loudly that the vast majority of your employees will not be with you for very long. Forget “lifers.” We’re now striving for “fivers.” With this reality firmly in mind, shouldn’t more effort be focused on supercharging our incoming workforce?
The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) 2011-2012 Benchmarking Database indicates cost-per-hire (investment to attract and recruit new employees) for smaller organizations (fewer than 1,000 employees) averaged $3,079 and larger organizations (more than 1,000 employees) averaged $4,285. On top of the cost-per-hire are your ongoing training, development, taxes, and benefit package costs. When a new employee walks through the door, you realistically have approximately 4.6 years (or insert your company’s average tenure) to get a return on your employee investment.
If we embrace this limited employee tenure as reality, how should we respond from an “investment maximization” perspective?
1. Precision Hiring. While employers have never had time to waste on bad hires – this truth is more critical than ever before. If you are not using the latest in advanced recruiting and screening tools, roll up your sleeves, flex your fingers, and get to work. (Staffing industry professionals know the industry best practices and can be a great help in finding the right people.) You’ll thank yourself when you start reaping the results of your selection efforts.
2. Promote from within and without. Success, and the rapid growth it involves, will require you to integrate experienced individuals from outside the company. Companies no longer have the luxury of hiring only from within – as the required level of experience may not be available internally in the quantity needed.
3. No-joke, intensive onboarding (with mentoring). Employees need to be brought up to speed within a matter of days – not weeks or months – when newly hired and when promoted. Your policies and procedures can’t be just communicated by osmosis over time by wise sages who may (or may not) be available to answer questions. The ramp in “ramp-up time” continues to shrink. Your onboarding plans also need to encompass all significant roles in your organization – not just entry level. Employees with experience will need to both “unlearn” former employer requirements and “learn” your company’s practices and procedures – a tall order that will take active mentoring to accomplish.
4. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. (Should I emphasize it once more for good measure?) Once you have a vibrant team – hired for the right roles, trained to deliver, and excited about growing within your organization – keep them in the loop and involve them in the dialogue. The tenure clock is ticking, and you need to maximize your employee investment. Your employees have, statistically speaking, chosen to invest a portion of their career with you. How much they will invest (how long they will stay engaged and be “retained”) is based significantly on how well you involve them in your organization.
Great employers do everything well -- select the best people, provide the best onboarding, and build an environment where the best and brightest want to stay and grow. They actively “fertilize the grass” in their own backyards in the hope that other lawns look less attractive. In the process of doing all these great things for your company, however, don’t be blinded by the allure of the many shiny new “solutions to retention problems”
that grace your inbox. Focus first on getting the right people in the door and providing them with the knowledge they need to quickly succeed.
Leigh Ann Pagnard, Sr. Vice President of Belcan Corporation, has nearly 20 years of staffing industry experience. She was selected for the 2012 Staffing Industry 100, a list of the most influential people in the staffing industry. Belcan Corporation provides engineering, staffing, and other flexible workforce solutions to clients around the globe. It is the parent company of Belcan Engineering, Belcan Staffing Solutions, and Belcan TechServices. Belcan is ranked #37 on the list of largest US staffing firms.
