According To Noah Webster, retention is the act or power of keeping or retaining, but Corporately, retention is the power to keep employees actively engaged and committed to being an integral part of the organization. So what is retention like in this day in age? Are employers on the same page as their employees when it comes to effective performance and talent management?
According to the SHRM Workplace Forecast of 2011, our workplace trends are directly related to talent acquisition, selection & retention. All of these being consecutive to one another and going hand in hand with creating a successful business.
A recent survey on employee performance and retention conducted by Express Employment Professionals, one of the nation’s largest privately held staffing companies, found that employers are more disconnected than ever from their workforce. Express’ survey revealed that 77 percent of leaders say retention was not a problem or only a slight problem in 2011, while 91 percent of employees said they are willing to switch jobs. These extreme figures should be waking up the employers of our nation, and creating a call to action that something’s not right.
With Employee turn over in the US at 16.4 percent what is there to do? How do you shift your talent management, selection and retention in a way that that increases your profit, your employee satisfaction and turnover?
First of all strong leadership is imperative right now in order to enhance your management operating style, implementing accountability systems, while building and developing high-performance teams.
Talent acquisition can only be beat one way: putting the right people in the right roles. How do we do that? By perfecting selection. Selection can be managed with internally, with a 3rd party recruiter or using both. Whichever your company decides to go with you must ensure that their skills, personality, and values align with the job and the company. Developing Interview strategies that include pre-established critical screening questions, an in-depth career history review and custom built behavioral interview models prevent the unhealthy corporate impact as well as the high cost of a mis-hire.
Over all the corporate response must be to link employee performance and its impact on the organization’s business goals. Doing this will keep employees goals align with the company’s, creating increasing accomplishment and happier on track employees.
So try something different, create a new hiring process, change the way you interview and beef up your leadership training and finally retain the talent you need.
To learn more about retention, talent management and see how to create a conscious hiring process, visit us at keenhire.com. We equip companies with systems, processes and people to hire & retain with clarity and insight.
By: Emily Eastman