We have this concept of employee retention all wrong in that it doesn’t really matter. Let’s take that right out and start with a much cleaner understanding.
We need the best performers retained. And so, we need to make sure we have quality retention, those who are performing, and those who live by the culture. We don’t want everybody hanging around that’s being disruptive, stirring the pot, and causing a problem as they are creating so much chaos for those who are doing the hard work.
So let’s get our head around that concept first.
Now that said, there is another group where we need to grow people from if they are willing to take the journey to become someone who is not disruptive, and to learn how to be someone who is contributing to profit and contributing in the organization, because this group really matters. They’re the ones that pay the bills. They’re the ones that take care of the customers, they’re the ones that you can’t live without, and those are the ones that we must retain. So let’s think about it first of all, in terms of is this the retention that we want? Is this quality retention? Then from there, what matters?
Well, we did our national research study of performance culture, and we asked executives, what’s the most important thing that keeps you in an organization? What they said is pretty surprising. They said it’s that they’re given an educational path to continue to improve their abilities and their employability. Well, isn’t that interesting.
During difficult times, organizations oftentimes think about, well, we’ll cut this and we’ll cut that, nd the first thing they cut is anything that develops their people. And yet, your executives, who are some of the most important people for you to retain, need to be developed. And we have to find a way to not only develop them but develop them again with masters who understand how to increase their results, so that they walk away not just having finished a course, but transformed somebody’s world in terms of the results that they’re getting.
So that’s what’s important to executives, in terms of what’s most important to them. For everybody in terms of retention, we have to be thinking that they’re all wanting education.
Regarding most other employees, 48% said they will leave a company if they have to work around somebody who is a pain to work around. Underperforming bad attitudes, they are intolerant of that. And so isn’t that interesting that 48%, half of them, will leave you because you’re not dealing with somebody that you need to be dealing with who’s causing problems in that organization.
So listen, I would rather give a kidney to somebody than fire them. I understand, it hurts my soul when I have to say goodbye to somebody and say you’re no longer welcome on this team. It is heartbreaking, it is crushing to every bone in my body, I get how painful that is. And I have learned to reframe that such that I now think that I need to protect my high performers from the chaos. Because if I don’t deal with that situation, then these good performers have time robbed away from their time with family and friends. And that’s my ethical responsibility to deal with those kinds of things.
So since 48% say that they will leave you, and that is a big contributor to your turnover, by not dealing with the stinkers who are pot stirring in your organization, that might be a great place to start.