Retaining your best employees

Retaining Your best employees

Are you retaining your best employees?

How do you know who qualifies as “best”?   Years ago Jack Welch had each level of employee rate those below them and asked them to eliminate the bottom 10% 

BUT – what were they evaluating?  Was it biased?  How could you tell?

So the first problem trying to answer my question – is how do you define “best.”  Clearly, it is different for different activities – but it is also different based on who is doing the evaluating.  Is it possible to create a fair and neutral evaluation tool?

Next of course are the decisions necessary to make sure that you retain those you wish to retain. 

Which remind me of something I so strongly dislike:  “Last in first out.”   Yes, I know its done to prevent anyone thinking there was favoritism or discrimination – but you might be throwing away some of your best employees if you do this during a layoff. 

What’s more important – safety or getting the best value from those you employ? 

Another way to guarantee loss of great employees is not reward them for their extra efforts.  If you have a policy of “even-ness” or “fair-ness” it means that everyone with the same job title gets the same pay.  BUT, what if one of them works really hard and is not only competent but creative and the other is mediocre, doing just enough to not get in trouble?  You will lose the better employee soon.

The very best way to lose your very best people is to have a policy that says from each according to his/her ability to each according to her/his needs.  Under this policy, your janitor might be eligible for a higher salary than your chief engineer. 

Another thing to remember, is sometimes the person doing the same routine work day in and day out is one of your best.  He or she is reliable, careful, and conscientious.  Although not the innovator or creator, this steady as a rock person is needed in your organization – and needs to be recognized as one of the best. 

We tend to think only the more creative and flamboyant activities show us the best – but let’s never forget the slow and steady that are the root of everything that your organization needs daily. 

There are levels of “best” – not just the shining stars. 

Another thing to consider is what you reward.  Too many companies reward quantity because it is easily measurable and forget about quality – which may be more subjective.  BUT if you only reward quantity, quality will surely suffer. 

Think about a call center operator.  Do they stay on the line with the customer until the problem is solved – or are they quick to get off the phone so they can take the next call and meet – or exceed their numbers? 

What about the person on the assembly line?  Move it fast – or make sure its right? 

SO – how do you retain your best employees? 

1. 1.    Be aware of who does what and how
2. 2.    Have a list of what you can reward
3. 3.    The most creative and innovative must be rewarded
4. 4.    keep quality in mind not just quantity
5. 5.    Remember that the steady-routine person is also valuable
6. 6.    Have small rewards and recognitions that you can freely give as you notice something special.
7. 7.    Have a budget for bigger rewards – for individuals as well as for teams
8. 8.    Raises and bonuses – to those deserving (don’t keep it even)
9. 9.    Opportunities to present to the executive staff for the deserving
10. 10. More challenging assignments
11. 11. Recognizing their ideas in team meetings and brainstorming meetings
12. 12. Public recognition:  Newsletters, bulletin boards, awards they can keep in their cubicles, etc.
13. 13. Talk to them – make sure they are happy!

I’m sure there are other ways as well – what do you do to retain your best employees?  I’d love to hear from you.

Finding, Hiring and Retaining the A Team

Finding, Hiring and Retaining the A Team
BY
ArLyne Diamond, Ph.D.

I attended a meeting of the local IEEE TEM group the other night and the speaker’s topic was Hiring the A Team.  She was an interesting speaker, but her entire talk was geared towards hiring practices in general.  She never really mentioned the difference between “A” employees and ordinary ones, nor did she specify in any way how to find “A” players.

So, I want to talk about finding, hiring and retaining the “A” employees. 

Let’s start with definitions.  A stands for All-Star or the best.  A players are extra-ordinary, they are special.  So, when we talk about hiring “A” players at work, we are looking for those that stand out as different – in a positive way – than most people we would hire.

Therein lies the problem.  Generally speaking, people are afraid of people who are different.  Most people hire in their own image.  When I conducted my research on managing for creativity many of the C level executives I interviewed told me that not only did their managers stifle creativity, but that they made life miserable for those who had the potential to steal their jobs.

Too, if your corporate idea of “fairness” is to treat everyone exactly the same way, you are rewarding the mediocre and insulting the extra-ordinary.  You stand a good chance of losing the best and brightest and maintaining the ordinary who know how to play it safe.

When we treat everyone exactly the same in our team meetings (“You spoke for five minutes, not it is his turn to speak”) we are stifling the ideas of those who are idea people and allowing those who have nothing special to say equal time.

If your hiring process takes weeks on end, who is left at the end of the process?  Only those who didn’t get better and quicker offers elsewhere.  If your hiring process is to have a bunch of people each be part of the interview process and each have a vote as to who is hired and who is rejected, only the most ordinary will pass the screening and those that are different will be rejected.

As I write this, I am remembering some interviews that didn’t go well for me.  Let me share them with you:

·        I was being interviewed to become part of a major consulting firm.  During the second interview, the hiring manager told me he had shared my resume with other members of the organization and because of my varied and successful background, they wouldn’t hire me, because I probably wouldn’t conform – and (in his words) would be a loose cannon. 

·        On another occasion I was also called a loose cannon.  At the end of an interview process to bring me aboard as a consultant, the decision maker told me all was in order and I would get the written offer in a week at the most.  As he was walking out, he was holding my marketing materials.  He mentioned how attractive the folder was and asked me where I purchased it.  I replied that I had painted it myself (it was a subtle color wash on a duo-tang folder.)  Horrified, he said, “Oh, you are an artist – we can’t use you, you are probably a loose cannon.”

Not being called a loose cannon – but not believed:

·        I had been asked to teach the testing/evaluation courses at a graduate school.  During the hiring process they realized that I didn’t have my doctorate and for accreditation reasons they needed to hire only Ph.D. professors.  Since I had attended to get my doctorate eventually, I decided to sign up then and there.

During the interview process – conducted by a group of people including faculty and students, I was asked to describe some of what I had accomplished in life.  As I started to mention some of what I’d done, one of the women said, “How could you possibly have accomplished all of that – I certainly couldn’t have done all that.”  I was stunned.  How do you answer such a question.  Fortunately, one of the deans in the room had been one of my professors when I was working towards my first master’s degree.  He interrupted the conversation to say that I had been his teaching assistant and there was no question but that I had accomplished all I said – and more.  I got accepted.

In her book, “Atlas Shrugged” Ayn Rand tells the story of John Galt and the Twentieth Century Motor Factory.  In this story she makes clear what happens when need, not merit determines promotions and compensation.  In this story (which I can’t tell anywhere as well as she did in her book) a motor factory which had earned its reputation as being the best, was turned over to the adult children of the original owners.  These new owners wanted the great social experiment and so they decided that compensation would be according to need.  So, if someone had four children they would be paid much more than someone with no children.  Bachelor John Galt, their chief designer quit, as did all other competent people.

This was a lot of how to fail to hire and retain the best and the brightest.  How do you find them though and give them the incentive to come with you and stay in your employee?

First of all you need to clearly define what you are looking for in a candidate.  Eliminate all the silly stuff like how many years of experience, or ability to carry 40 pounds of literature, or willingness to travel, etc.  Get to the essence.  What do you need – and then go looking for that person.

Now advertise for those skills, character, personality that are the essence of what you seek.  Advertise in all the associations, networking events, magazines, etc. that are likely to be read by and attended by those who are your potential finds.

Eliminate overly long and cumbersome interviews.  Only those absolutely able to size up candidates and not be threatened by them should do the interviewing. Be sure that those involved in the decision are able to size-up people that are different from themselves, or their expectations.

This reminds me of another story.

·        I was attending a workshop in ethics, led by someone other than me.  The example given the audience went something like this:  You have been searching for months for the right candidate for a very specialized need and cannot find him or her. After months of searching you make an offer to someone who doesn’t quite meet the elements in your job description.  This person is the “B” candidate, not the “A” one.  You make the offer and the next day the “A” candidate arrives.  What do you do?

Most people said they would keep the “B” candidate and regrettably let the “A’ candidate go.  Some said hire the “A” but then you would be guilty of a breach of ethics.

I said, I would hire both.  I had a responsibility to the “B” candidate to whom I had made an offer, but I also had a responsibility to my company, the other employees and the stockholders to hire and retain the best people I could find.

Once you find your “A” candidate, compensate him or her well and create stretch growth opportunities for them.  Be sure to give them the structure and the freedom they need to fulfill their responsibilities.  Have a path to promotion and to other challenges. 

Remember, the “A” team is the all-star team.  Each person has a role in it, just as each member of a sports team has a different role.  In baseball, the catcher and the pitcher have different skills and responsibilities, as do the center field and the short-stop

If someone is an “A” team player or an “A” team employee they stand out in the crowed, thus they are noticed by others.  If you don’t let them do their best in your employee – and reward them accordingly – there are lots of other offers out there..  

Retaining Talent

Seven Ways to Retain Your Most Valuable Talent

In a competitive work environment the best of your talent can be seduced by recruiters and others to go where the promise of the grass being greener attracts them.  You are left with your more average talent because they are less desirable to the headhunters.

What motivates the brightest and the best?  Surely it’s not the promise of more money – because they were smart enough to negotiate a good compensation package when you hired them.  So, what does motivate them?  

Here are some general ideas of what motivates talented people to stay in your organization:

1.     Ability to work with a minimum of instruction and intrusion from supervisors.

2.     Opportunities for creative problem solving in different areas/projects.

3.     Recognition and appreciation for their accomplishments.

4.     Flexible hours which enable them to find time for their own pet projects.

5.     Permission to use a portion of company time to develop new ideas or projects.

6.     A path to promotion that ties in their careers with your succession plans.

7.     Respect – to be recognized as not one of the crowd but as someone who rises above the ordinary.