Staff Retention

Sometimes the recruitment process can seem to found an ideal candidate but within a short time it is obvious that this is not so.  What can go wrong?

Often the major problem is haste.  It takes time to go through the process that I have just outlined.  It is so much easier to presume you know the sort of person you need for your business, and to just advertise.  With this sort of random recruiting you will have mixed results.

We are all busy, and preparing for an interview can be low down the priority list when you have done it many times before.  However again it all boils down to being prepared so you know what you are really looking for.  When you are ill-prepared your questioning will be generic, and that is when you are most likely to employ someone who has the technical and professional skills you require but who is not necessarily a good fit with the culture of the business or with the rest of the team.  When you are not prepared for an interview there is a great danger of talking too much.  You are there to listen and observe, to ask open questions then carefully evaluate the responses.  If you talk too much the candidate will be well informed, but you will be hiring on superficial impressions rather than deep insight into how the person works, thinks and interacts.

When you first interview someone, give them a realistic understanding of the job, the highs and lows, the positives and negatives.  They have a right to know so they are basing their decision on reality, but it is also in your best interests because you want someone who is going to stay.

Often people are engaged by the personality of the candidate, liking their personal attributes or finding aspects of the person that feel very familiar, and therefore wanting to work with them.  This can be a disaster, both for the business and for the individual, if the job that is being offered is not the right job for that individual.  Always remember you are looking for the right fit of person to job, for your sake and for theirs.

Much has been written in recent years about the impact that Generation Y is having on the workforce, Generation Y being those born between 1980 and 1994, now aged 14 to 28.  Just to digress for a moment, a generation in the past was considered the average time between parents and their children within a family.  Generational groups are now determined by peaks and troughs in the national birth rate, with the years that generations span now considered to be shorter than in the past. Taking that concept a step further, the common influences that a group of people, born between one birth rate trough and the next, have experienced has been closely examined to come to an understanding of the generational influences that will have had some effect on most people within that group.  A very obvious example is the frugal mentality of those who were raised by parents who lived through the Depression and who grew up during the era of the Second World War (a generation known as the “Builders”), compared with the consumerism of young adults today.

Without going into the details of the different generations, as that is a topic on its own, it is essential if you are considering the recruitment of a young employee, that you consider their likely expectations of the working environment.  Obviously any comments about generations are generalizations, but they are generalizations based on much research and anecdotal evidence.  Generation Y have been brought up by Baby Boomers, or in some cases older Generation X parents, to have high expectations.  We were aspirational and as we achieved some of our goals our children were brought up to expect those benefits in their lives.  Generation Y comes into the workforce, with different expectations of the working environment from that of past generations.  However they also often bring great strengths in the employability skills that were mentioned earlier, as these skills have been built into their education.

But it is important to be aware that a Generation Y job applicant is very likely to look at your business and ascertain if they like the corporate culture, and to want to know what the company can offer them now and in the future.  What you can offer them NOW may in fact be all that they are looking for, because it is a generation that moves on fairly readily, not necessarily unhappy but seeking what the next opportunity can also offer them.  If retention is something that matters to your business then it makes it even more important to be prepared to answer their likely questions of

What are the lifestyle advantages of working with this company?

What teams will I be part of? and

Who will mentor me?

Generation Y want to learn fast, to make an impact fast, and to be guided to avoid pitfalls and mistakes.  Therefore mentoring and coaching are both acceptable and desirable to them.  Lifestyle is important to this generation, with many witnessing their parents working too hard, to the detriment of lifestyle and family life.  There is an expectation that there will be lifestyle advantages built into their work life, such as gym memberships to enable them to blend long working hours with retaining a level of fitness.

Gallup Management Journal (gmj.gallup.com) in a December 2007 article “What Generation Gap” delivered the results of an online survey of people seeking full or part time work.  They found that there were far more similarities than differences between the generations.  Interest in work was deemed extremely important by all generations as was the quality of managers and management, the quality of team dynamics in the workplace and appropriate compensation.  Career development was extremely important across the generations, particularly the opportunity to learn and grow, advancement in areas of interest, and merit based promotion.  Worklife balance similarly was important to all generations, but was interpreted differently by the different generations, according to their stage of life.

Dr William Glasser, the noted psychologist and author, bases his Choice Theory on five basic needs that all humans must meet to be content:  Survival, Belonging, Power, Freedom and Fun or challenge.  If you consider these needs in light of people being content in their working life, if becomes clear that a wise employer or manager would attempt to build these basic needs into their business culture in order to make their workplace attractive to potential employees and to retain the staff they have. When an employer or manager’s efforts to motivate fail they commonly move to create an atmosphere of fear or coercion, attempting to manage people through external control.  The expected result of this form of management is an unproductive environment with low quality work or services, and subtle subversion of the goals of the organisation.

To avoid this you need strong leadership and management practices that place great value on recruiting the right people and retaining them as fulfilled and content team members.

Career Clarity can help you with staff retention issues.  Contact Jenni Proctor on 0413 602096 or jenni@careerclarity.com.au