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Employers are delusional as hell. They think they are in control and it is an employer-led market. It is not, and employees are winning (at least the smart ones).
Treating employees as disposable actually benefits the employees and costs a lot for companies. 80% of employees increased their salary by changing jobs and they also climbed the career ladder faster. So do they care if employers treat them as if they were disposable? No, it is actually a problem for the employers not for employees.
It is an employee-led market because employees are playing around and I cannot even blame them. They will take your low-paid job, and put up with your poor leadership and working conditions if they need the cash to survive but they continue looking for a better opportunity and will leave. They also figured out, that loyalty (staying with the company for long) slows down their earning and career growth. So why exactly should they be staying? For development and training opportunities? For the vision of the company? For the culture? Please! They can get those anywhere they go and they know that. Also, do they care about those?
The question is; how do we stop this? My answer is that you don't! The way we look at retention must change! You have little control over employees' migrating behaviour and your focus must not be on changing their behaviour but on your organisation. Your job is to create a great work environment, be a good employer and the rest is up to the employees. It is the same principle as being in a relationship. You can only make sure that you are a good partner but you cannot stop your partner from leaving you if they want to.
Turnover is only a bad thing if you don't know what to do with people while they are with you. Turnover means the flow of skills, knowledge, ideas, expertise, and experience so you must learn to leverage them instead of crying about turnover. Turnover is only a problem because you have no idea how to leverage talent. Turnover is good if you want it to be. But employers are held hostage by the turnover KPI (not sure where they get the ideal number from) hence they are paralysed by it. They hate it because they are in a defensive position instead of being prepared for it. How? Figure out:
how recruitment costs can be lowered because you know that the turnover rate is high
how to onboard employees in the most efficient and cost-effective way
how to replace talent in the fastest way
how to leverage their competence from day 1 of joining
how to show their value of work so you don't have to focus on recruitment costs. It becomes irrelevant when you can offset that with productivity. The money is not in employee retention, it is in their contribution.
But most importantly, focus on being a good employer! That is your greatest retention strategy!
Don't act out of desperation trying to hold on to employees like the last Coca-Cola in the desert. First of all, you will likely be blocking the flow of talent, ideas, innovation, expertise, etc., hurting the company. Second of all, turnover is part of running a business, it is a cost of running a business so be okay with it. Detach yourself from your ideal turnover KPIs and see what rate the business is naturally producing. Then dive into the details and establish where you are losing talent. Is it at the hiring process? During onboarding? Is it because of the leadership? The pay? The lack of transparency over bonuses and now employees feel that they were played? But you don't know that do you? You are just shouting retention, retention, without knowing why and where you are losing talent. You cannot fix a problem if you don't understand it. Maybe employees are not leaving because of you! Maybe it is the behaviour of a certain demographic and you have no control over that. But what you have control over is, whether or not hiring that demographic. You have ways to address turnover but you have no information about where your problems lie. Maybe you want something that is not compatible with your retention strategy. You want young and ambitious people who stay for 5 years. Not happening, love! If you want people to stay for 5 years you might think of hiring middle-aged people but you don't want that either. Well, you can't have everything so you must choose. Some characteristics come with a certain compromise you choose which one you are prepared to deal with.
And the funny part is that while you are being beaten by your turnover rate, being stubborn over changing your people management practices (because this is who we are take it or leave it), and running around screaming retention, retention, employees are doubling up their salaries and happily climbing the corporate ladders.
And you thought employers it is a market led by you? Right!
How to change your practices and your mindset about people management processes? Get to work instead of crying RETENTION, RETENTION!
How to change things around:
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