How to keep your best staff on board
Employers and managers need to start recognising the efforts of their staff, or risk having their best people walk off the job, according to recent findings from the Kelly Workforce Index.
The
survey revealed the top reasons employees resign, which mostly revolve
around the kind of relationship they have with their boss, such as
feeling overworked, receiving little coaching or mentoring and having
little hope for career advancement. The reasons included:
1. Having a negative relationship with direct manager.
2. Little hope for career advancement or growth.
3. The reality of a role does not match what was promised during the recruitment process.
4. Employees are overworked and stressed out.
5. Employees perceive a lack of coaching and/or mentoring from their employers.
(Kelly Global Workforce Index, 2011)
The
survey collected the views of approximately 134,000 people in 29
countries, including more than 20,000 in Australia. According to
figures, 60 per cent of employees believe they will change their career
at least once in their lives, which means employers need to work hard to
create a work environment that will help to retain staff for a long
period of time.
“People
are already a business’s largest expense, replacing an employee costs
an employer up to three times that persons annual wage, so constant
employee turnover can quickly spiral out of control – not to mention the
interruption that turnover causes to productivity,” said Penny
O’Reilly, general manager at Kelly Services Australia.
Ben
Thompson is managing director of the EI Group, which provides advice
for small business owners on HR and employment issues. He believes that
one of the benefits of small businesses have over large corporations is
that the managers often get to know the people they work with on a far
closer level. However, one of the problems for many small business
owners is that they may not necessarily have had much experience in
management or HR issues.
“Employers
shouldn’t focus on recognising when people go wrong. The best way of
increasing employee engagement is to focus and recognise when people do
well,” Thompson advised, adding managers should provide their employees
with at least four positive statements about their work for every
negative comment they offer.
“You
should spend the best part of your day looking for opportunities to
thank, congratulate and reward employees for the efforts that they put
in.”
* The next issue of Smarter Business Ideas features a story on how to keep your staff without spending valuable dollars. See the story here after April 8 2011.