Keys to preventing high employee turnover

Are you tired of the cost, pain and setbacks from high employee turnover?

Are you attracting the right employees?

Many organizations are struggling to attract, develop and retain good people. People in a position of leadership are asking themselves and their circle of peers what can be done to gain on these issues. Businesses know that they need people in order to provide their products or services. Even though people are a necessary component to any successful team, managers often struggle to solve the people issues of their day. 

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Are you attracting the right people?

If you fish, you know the value of having the right bait. The more you know about who you are fishing for, where you will be fishing and what the condition are, the more successful you will be. Fishing teaches you that you must be patient. Do some research, ask local fishermen, adjust to the conditions and trust the process.  

Are you able to answer:

• Who you are looking for 
• Where to better find your targets
• What the cultural conditions are
• Who can help you develop your skills

Align the hiring process with your values

Are you frustrated by high turnover? You feel the burden of having to continually recruit and train new employees. Beyond that pain there are hard costs for your organization as well as the demoralizing toll of strolling through the graveyard of co-workers past. Are you clear on your vision and values? If you can communicate those core components, have you analyzed whether your hiring process is in alignment with your vision and values? Too often organizations recruit people that have skills but are not good value or cultural fits. 

Are you tired of the revolving door of employee turnover? Are you willing to adjust your hiring process to stop chasing unicorns and start hiring according to your vision and values?

Build your vision by starting with recruitment

Previously we have written about the Three Character Keys for Acquiring Value Adding Talent. ​​In an age where unemployment levels are at record lows, those that want to compete for talent have to get creative. This creativity comes in searching where those of the status quo are unwilling to go. Finding new fishing holes and experimenting with different types of bait will enable you to keep bringing quality team members into the boat. 

While you cannot control everything your team members do once they are in the organization, you can control who you allow on the team. Start respecting the process.

Develop your organization by building a team

Searching for good employees

Whether you have a good team or you are committed to building one, who you let in the door is a critical decision. A bad hire costs more than a good one and the ripple effects can set your momentum back for an extended period of time. Conversely, as Gino Wickman points out in his book Traction, "If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time." Does this inspire you? Isn't that what good leaders want - a team with members who are rowing together and dominating? That process starts with an organization clear on their vision and values. 

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Build trust by creating clarity around truth in your organization, consistently protecting those values and developing accountability within the team from the top down and the bottom up.

Are you willing to change your approach

In his latest article covering change management, author and coach Lex Sisney shares the Stop-Start-Ideal methodology of communication. While he shares this as a means to better communicate with team members who need to adjust their actions, it also serves as a metric for adjusting our own thinking. If you find yourself doing things that are not getting the result that you want, it's time to stop doing the things that are setting you back. Get some clarity on your ideals. Start acting in alignment with your vision and values. Learn to fish with bait that attracts the type of fish you want in the boat.