“In a good to great transformation, people are not your most important asset. The right people are.”
Jim Collins
I’ve Been Thinking. . . a lot about how to keep the right people on your team.
A successful nurse, tragically hit by a bus and killed, arrives at the pearly gates and is welcomed by St. Peter, who says that she will need to spend one day in Heaven and one day in Hell before she decides where she would like to spend eternity.
With great trepidation she enters Hell and is amazed to find a beautiful golf course, friends and colleagues who welcome her, terrific food, a great pool party and even a nice-guy devil. At the end of her day, she regretfully leaves Hell in order to experience her day in Heaven. That experience is delightful as well, with clouds, angels, harps and singing that she expected.
St. Peter pushes her to make the decision of a lifetime (and beyond). In which place would she spend eternity – Heaven or Hell? You guessed it, she chooses Hell.
When she returns to Hell she finds a desolate wasteland, intense heat and her friends dressed in rags and picking up garbage. There are no parties – only misery and despair. She says to the Devil, “I don’t understand, yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a country club, and we fabulous food and we danced and had the time of our lives. Now I see desolation, the heat is overwhelming and all my friends look miserable and despondent.”
The Devil looks at her and smiles. “Yesterday we were recruiting you; today you’re a resident.”
Yesterday we were recruiting you; today you are an employee. Does the reality of employment match the aura of our recruitment?
Here’s the challenge . . . there’s a vicious cycle that naturally occurs requiring us to maintain continual attention to “recruiting” potential and current star performers.
It looks something like this: Recruit. . . Hire. . . Re-recruit. . . then Re-Re-Recruit staff. Otherwise, they feel less noticed. . . less appreciated. . .taken for granted. . .leave. . . we Re-Start Recruiting.
Most leaders need their cages rattled at some stage of the vicious circle just to shake the dust off stagnant practices. Consider these random challenges to determine where you might unlock the chains of the “way we’ve always done it” and inject fresh possibilities.
The first step to retention is who we hire. Hiring Recklessly or Randomly Results in Repetitious Remorse. It’s like planning for misery on the installment plan.
People decide in the first three days if they are going to leave or stay. They may not leave right away but the decision is made.
Repeat the new employee welcome “daily” - forever.
Poor Orientation = 36% of all turnover
What are we doing in orientation to make staff feel good about their decision and convince them that this is the place to be?
EXCUSE: We don’t have time for orientation – don’t have time not to have orientation. Without orientation, people aren’t convinced of the reasons to stay. Outcome: Organization becomes a revolving door.
You NEVER get a SECOND chance to make a good FIRST IMPRESSION. Capitalize on it.
Passionate leaders ensure people are indoctrinated with the driving philosophy of the company. Impassionate leaders constipate potential excitement.
Dynamite Recruiting without Fabulous Retention is a Waste of Energy.
Make a list of the top 25% of your team members – How Can You Keep Them?
Conclusion at Sprint: Employees want a leader who knows them, understands them, treats them fairly, and is someone who they can trust. Pay and benefits are expectations in this day and age. The most important element in retention is the leaders.
Turnover is not an event – it is really a process of disengagement that can take days, week, months and even years until the actual physical separation occurs.
Organizational complacency escalates employee discontent. Create new, fresh, compelling reasons for people to feel passionate about what they do.
89% of managers believe employees leave for money. 12% of employees leave for more money.
#1 reason people leave a job is supervisor/staff relations. Reality: People leave people not jobs.
Healthy Job Market: Unhappy employee will make a mad dash for a 5% pay increase.
Healthy Job Market: Happy employee will need at lest a 20% increase to jump ship.
According to research published by the late Susan Eaton, in What a Difference Management Makes, retention is all about relationships, and relationships are at the heart of a good working environment. This includes relationship with co-workers; across departments; with supervisors; with the organization; and, most importantly with the customers they serve.
Employers quote “unavoidable reason” for 90% of turnover.
Employees who left revealed only 11% had left for “unavoidable reasons”.
Saratoga found “unavoidable reasons” to be 5%.
Leaders can do something about 95% of the reasons people leave. . .
Remember Field of Dreams? Costner played a man obsessed by a vision to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond in order to attract star players from the past. A voice persisted in telling him, “Build it and they will come.” Well, he built it and they came. If you want to attract and retain star players, you must make your workplace one of your compelling recruiting and retention tools.
People need to go home feeling Useful –- Relevant –- Significant!
Get serious about creating a place that is fun to work!
How much time, energy and money are you investing in retention (re-recruiting) versus turnover and replacement?
Reboot, Reset, Refresh your re-recruiting radar ---
Be a place where people love to come (and stay) to work. . .
“The problem is not motivation. It is the ways in which we unintentionally demotivate employees.”
Quint Studer
Monday, May 16, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Whisper In My Ear. . .
“We are more and more into communications and less and less into communication.”
Studs Terkel
I’ve Been Thinking. . . no, I’ve almost been obsessing over the demise of face-to-face, verbal, heart-to-heart communication.
We’re LinkedIn, twittered, Facebooked, logged on, YouTubed, iPhoned, and even Googled but sometimes I’m not sure we’re really tuned in to what matters.
We now depend on Outlook rather than a conversation. The internet has replaced a spirited discussion over a cup of coffee. We email the person in the office next to us and go an entire day without exchanging words. Maybe we should declare an “email diet day.”
Studs Terkel is right. . . we’re communicating less and less.
As I pondered this blog’s message, I was reminded of a cute story I read years ago on communication. Timmy and his mother were at church. Just as the pastor began his sermon, Timmy shouted out, “Mommy, I have to go pee.”
Mother replied, “Shhhhh, we don’t use that word. We say ‘I have to whisper’.”
Timmy said, “Okay.”
The next week Timmy and his family went to church. He leaned over and said, “Daddy, I have to whisper.”
His dad replied, “Just whisper in my ear.”
Not a pretty picture. Even our simple communications are becoming complicated and misunderstood. We’re not all on the same page and that certainly can lead to some undesirable results.
Consider this, 300,000 users per day sign up for Twitter. Twitter recently disclosed these facts:
• Twitter now has 105,779,710 registered users (of course this number is
outdated as you read it).
• 180 million visitors come to the site every month.
• Twitter gets a total of 3 billion requests a day via its API.
• Twitter users are, in total, tweeting an average of 55 million tweets a day.
I sent that information to my son living in New York City. Ironically, he had an exaggerated (or maybe not) personal experience to illustrate my point. Here’s his message back to me:
“Thanks for sending this dad. It is an incredibly powerful tool. It's also very interesting to see how communication patterns are changing.
For example, Nikki and I were standing in line at Elizabeth & James, a boutique in the West Village, on Friday night. Being that the boutique's designers are Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, the majority line holder was female (10-35 years old). We were in line for nearly 2 hours, so needless to say people were on their phones (checking Facebook, email, Twitter, etc.) I tweeted from the line a number of times, including photos, # (hash tags) and @ (at replies).
The moment I found most interesting was when the two girls in front of me were both on their phones, while carrying on a conversation. Here was their back and forth...
Girl 1: "This line is crazy."
Girl 2: "Ya it is."
Girl 1: "I wish Mandy could see this line."
Girl 2: "I just posted a photo."
Girl 1: "Did you tweet it or status it?"
Girl 2: "Tweet."
It's crazy to me that people used to utilize email to avoid talking to an actual person. Now they "Tweet It" or "Status It" (Facebook Reference) to circumvent emailing. Not to mention that both Facebook and Twitter both utilize the GPS in your phone to include your location in each tweet or status update (spooky).”
I know, I know, roughly seventy-two percent of you are saying, “that is ridiculous, I’m not that addicted to technology.” Maybe not. Maybe.
What is getting in the way of your face-to-face, verbal communication with your spouse, friends, family, co-workers? What has replaced the emotion of words combined with body language, non-verbals, and tone of voice? Who is missing out on the unique opportunity to experience your personality? Certainly there are people anxious to “hear” your words of encouragement. It’s not possible to experience the warmth of your smile via an email.
Go talk to someone - - -
“85% of our joy, happiness in life comes from our interaction with others.”
Brian Tracy
Studs Terkel
I’ve Been Thinking. . . no, I’ve almost been obsessing over the demise of face-to-face, verbal, heart-to-heart communication.
We’re LinkedIn, twittered, Facebooked, logged on, YouTubed, iPhoned, and even Googled but sometimes I’m not sure we’re really tuned in to what matters.
We now depend on Outlook rather than a conversation. The internet has replaced a spirited discussion over a cup of coffee. We email the person in the office next to us and go an entire day without exchanging words. Maybe we should declare an “email diet day.”
Studs Terkel is right. . . we’re communicating less and less.
As I pondered this blog’s message, I was reminded of a cute story I read years ago on communication. Timmy and his mother were at church. Just as the pastor began his sermon, Timmy shouted out, “Mommy, I have to go pee.”
Mother replied, “Shhhhh, we don’t use that word. We say ‘I have to whisper’.”
Timmy said, “Okay.”
The next week Timmy and his family went to church. He leaned over and said, “Daddy, I have to whisper.”
His dad replied, “Just whisper in my ear.”
Not a pretty picture. Even our simple communications are becoming complicated and misunderstood. We’re not all on the same page and that certainly can lead to some undesirable results.
Consider this, 300,000 users per day sign up for Twitter. Twitter recently disclosed these facts:
• Twitter now has 105,779,710 registered users (of course this number is
outdated as you read it).
• 180 million visitors come to the site every month.
• Twitter gets a total of 3 billion requests a day via its API.
• Twitter users are, in total, tweeting an average of 55 million tweets a day.
I sent that information to my son living in New York City. Ironically, he had an exaggerated (or maybe not) personal experience to illustrate my point. Here’s his message back to me:
“Thanks for sending this dad. It is an incredibly powerful tool. It's also very interesting to see how communication patterns are changing.
For example, Nikki and I were standing in line at Elizabeth & James, a boutique in the West Village, on Friday night. Being that the boutique's designers are Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, the majority line holder was female (10-35 years old). We were in line for nearly 2 hours, so needless to say people were on their phones (checking Facebook, email, Twitter, etc.) I tweeted from the line a number of times, including photos, # (hash tags) and @ (at replies).
The moment I found most interesting was when the two girls in front of me were both on their phones, while carrying on a conversation. Here was their back and forth...
Girl 1: "This line is crazy."
Girl 2: "Ya it is."
Girl 1: "I wish Mandy could see this line."
Girl 2: "I just posted a photo."
Girl 1: "Did you tweet it or status it?"
Girl 2: "Tweet."
It's crazy to me that people used to utilize email to avoid talking to an actual person. Now they "Tweet It" or "Status It" (Facebook Reference) to circumvent emailing. Not to mention that both Facebook and Twitter both utilize the GPS in your phone to include your location in each tweet or status update (spooky).”
I know, I know, roughly seventy-two percent of you are saying, “that is ridiculous, I’m not that addicted to technology.” Maybe not. Maybe.
What is getting in the way of your face-to-face, verbal communication with your spouse, friends, family, co-workers? What has replaced the emotion of words combined with body language, non-verbals, and tone of voice? Who is missing out on the unique opportunity to experience your personality? Certainly there are people anxious to “hear” your words of encouragement. It’s not possible to experience the warmth of your smile via an email.
Go talk to someone - - -
“85% of our joy, happiness in life comes from our interaction with others.”
Brian Tracy
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