Conduct Stay Interviews
Anyone who’s ever read one of my articles knows that I’m a huge fan of what I like to call ‘stay interviews.’ Whenever someone quits a job, the company always holds an interview just as they’re leaving called an ‘exit interview’ to find out exactly why and what went wrong. This, I think, is entirely counter-productive. By the time an employee leaves, they have no motivation to be honest with you about why they’re leaving and what you could have done to keep them.
Taking the time to ask your best employees if they’re happy, what’s working, and what’s going on with them before they hand in their two week’s notice could save you time and grief trying to replace them. If you put the time into employee retention before you start losing talent, your internal communications structure will survive, and you’ll keep your best employees.
Be Genuine and Fair
I’ll be completely honest here – nobody likes someone who plays favorites. If the person on your team who gets the best results is passed over for a promotion in favor of the person who drinks with the big boss every Friday night, people notice.
People have a good sense of fairness, and if you’re handing out favors for personal or bad reasons, the people who keep the trains running on time within the infrastructure of your company will see that and head elsewhere where their talent might be better appreciated. Great workers are also wise to the whole ‘I could never promote them, they’re too valuable in their current position’ deal, which is basically punishing them for doing a good job. If you’re fair to your awesome people, the whole company benefits.
Offer Flexibility
If one of your employees is an absolute rockstar, and wants to work from home, there’s almost no reason not to at least give it a trial run. Showing faith and trust in an employee by letting them work where they won’t be constantly distracted with questions from less capable colleagues is nearly always the key to a great worker employer relationship. In fact, among millennial workers, most would take a pay cut for scheduling and location flexibility. Even if they’re the only one you trust to go remote and you’re worried the others will cry ‘not fair,’ it’s not a reason to punish the person who can handle a flexible schedule.
Don’t Take Tech Employees for Granted
There’s a popular joke that describes why employees who handle important but difficult-to-explain technical matters feel taken for granted. It goes in the form of a boss saying to an employee when things are going well, “Everything is working fine, what do I even pay you for?” Conversely, when there are tons of fires to be put out, that same boss might turn to the tech guy and say “Everything is broken! What do I even pay your for?” It’s important to remember that just because you don’t fully understand why someone’s job is important, it doesn’t mean that it’s okay to take them for granted. That person could have been the one keeping your entire infrastructure intact.
Internal communications should be geared towards keeping your employees informed and happy. Employee retention isn’t as simple as conducting a few stay interviews and patting the right people on the back, but the more attention you give to keeping your most talented employees, the better your organization will fare.
