Don’t Be Complacent About Worker Retention

A stagnant employment report in August may be a reason to assume that your employees aren’t going anywhere. If job growth is sparse, why would they want to leave stable employment that offers benefits and paid vacation? Think again. Recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that the number of workers leaving their current jobs is increasing. Perhaps the additional workloads and pay cuts brought on by the recession are driving them to greener pastures. Or maybe they haven’t had the guts to make a change while the economy was ailing. However, now that pent up demand is finally requiring some employers to hire, they are more confident in their prospects.

So how can you keep valuable employees that you’ve spent hours training from jumping ship to a competitor? Roberta Chinsky Matuson, president of Human Resource Solutions, will present an audioconference on Sept. 15 to help answer that question. Matuson shares these realities that most employees wish their bosses would recognize:

1. You’re not the boss of me. Even though you are the boss, you don’t own your employees. They’ll resent you playing the “because I said so” card too many times.

2. Asking workers to be team players won’t work anymore. Too many employees have seen exiting CEOs rewarded with bonuses while the rest of the staff endures a pay cut.

3. Fix or fire the non-performers. It’s no secret who isn’t pulling their weight. You’ll damage morale if you allow dead weight to linger on your team.

4. Measure results, not face time. If you penalize employees for getting work done quickly, they’ll slow down and become less efficient.

Those are just a few ways that you may be turning employees off and sending them out the door. It’s inevitable that you’ll lose employees periodically. However, don’t allow poor businesses practices to be the reason.