This employee retention speaker and employee retention author has found an incredible solution to employee retention issues in an organization. Tell your employees you have a problem with employee retention, then shut up and let them tell you what they think the problem is. It’s amazing, although sometimes difficult to listen to what your people will tell you. You may not like what you hear but you have to keep your mouth shut and listen. Absorb it all no matter how difficult it might be because I can guarantee the truth is often hard to take. Once they have unloaded on you, you need to take what they have said to heart and begin to develop employee retention strategies with what they have told you as the basis for change.
Trust me on this one. As a former HR leader, this is what I did. It was brutal, but it worked. Not everything you hear is going to be something you act on but if you are honest with yourself the ideas that come out will truly make a difference. Instead of hunting around and guessing as to what the problem might be…ask your people.
This employee retention trainer would take all the data and absorb it…no matter how difficult it was and then start to put some priorities in place and work through the list. Guess what happened? We immediately began to see an impact on our employee retention and employee engagement. The mere fact that we asked had an impact. Our people knew what the answers were but as leaders we were often too close or too invested in the process in order to think clearly. Our employees gave us that clarity.
If you want to drive employee retention in your organization, all you have to do is put the problem out there for your people. Your people want the organization to succeed and they will tell you their thoughts. People generally want to be heard so badly that it will be like a dam is breaking when you see the flow of ideas that you hear. Just be open to it, take action on what you hear and sit back and watch the results that come in. It’s real simple…just not easy. Tell your people you have an employee retention problem…then shut up and listen!
