The debate chirped in my ear like the birds outside jockeying for position on the limb of a tree as my managers slowly gathered in my office. They sat in a semi-circle facing my desk, each with a pad of paper and a pen. A few with notes already written down for a discussion reminder, some with doodles from meetings past and others blank and awaiting a pen’s first mark. I stared out of the double pained window, imagining the birds were giving me a lesson in employee retention. One manager giving a staunch support of the incentives and raffles with another blistering him with the positive experience of an event. They raised their voices for a moment as they both positioned themselves the smarter of the other. Several managers sitting in my office were quiet, waiting for the meeting to take a direction. We had gathered to discuss our retention planning for the year as there would be a significant time and monetary investment necessary.
The room smelled of air freshener that made a slight poof sound from the countertop behind my desk just before the fragrance filled the room. I heard the sound over the conversations in the room and expected the smell. I continued to peer out the door at the tree that sat just outside. The smell of coconut spice-something was inconsistent with the view of the green leafy trees that waved eagerly, inviting me to open the door. I stopped the conversation for a moment and asked one of them to open the sliding glass door to the patio. The room sat quiet as a rush of cool air and sunshine engulfed us in silence. It was brisk and refreshing but extremely bright.
Basking in the sunlight and cool breeze, I slid deeper into my chair, soaking in the contradiction. The slight breeze snapped me forward as it lifted papers from the corner of my desk. I hurried in the moment trying to catch the pages as if they were lost forever if they touched the ground. I stack them back carefully, tapping them on the top of my desk to even the edges and look for a heavy object to hold them down. A stapler serves adequate to stop the chaos of papers from blowing again.
The team looked at me with glee to see the silliness of my reaction, almost hoping for a Snapchat opportunity. I let out a giggle as my chair rocks forward almost tipping me to the floor. Suddenly, the grand idea of inviting the outside into my office seems less a wise endeavor. I settle back into my chair and take a drink of the Red Bull that was sweating in the Houston humidity on the front corner of my desk.
I started the meeting with a bit of a jester’s action with chasing papers and almost falling out of my chair, but I know that I must get this back to a professional meeting. I look at the crowd now facing me quietly, awaiting instruction. The highs and the lows transition in like the weather and it is our job to find the best approach to employee retention. They are looking to see if I had the magic bullet, but, unfortunately, one does not exist. We were going to engage in a discussion, both with this team and our staff.
We had recently surveyed our employees and held the consolidated content in a pile tightly stacked under a stapler. We received many different suggestions, from increased wages to adding more break facilities at our venues. Ultimately, we were looking to make as much impact as we could, both in perception and reality. The goal in retention for me was to maximize output from our current pool without manipulating the staff through unkept promises. We are not politicians; we have to be able to accomplish what we communicate in our intentions.
I open the floor to the managers, encouraging the flow of ideas. The debate heated at times as the conviction to their beliefs were tested in the open forum of the meeting. At one point and a particularly contentious moment, I stopped the conversation. “In debate, you can elevate your content, or you can raise your volume. I am only hearing the volume at this point and do not understand the point you want to make,” I stated, calming the conversation. “The fact is that we are going to make changes and there are not bad ideas.” The floor was opened again to conversation.
Passion is an important component to the belief structure and differing opinions are an amazing leveling tool for decisions. However, it is important to moderate conversations, so they do not become personal in approach.
There is a knock on the door behind the semi-circle of managers and our scheduler is standing behind it. She apologizes for the interruption, but an employee is on the phone wanting to speak to a manager. Our meeting is in full swing. One of my managers turns and tells her that he will call them back when the meeting is over. He turns back to me and makes eye contact. In that fleeting moment he turned to me, it dawned on him how wrong our approach was about to be if he didn’t take this call immediately. Without having to say a word, he stood up and started out to the main office to intercept our scheduler before she communicated our inappropriate approach.
I write down Communication on the top of my list.
We continue our meeting throwing out ideas of what we can do better. We always circle back to bonuses and raffles as it seems like the easiest way to maximize participation. The return on investment is something that we have not measured but brings the idea that, if we pair our rewards, there may be an extended return. I write down “Incentives” on the second line with a question mark. In speaking to managers my whole career, I have argued with people about the benefits of incentive programs, which all too often are considered the retention program. I disagree with this idea; if we are going to add an “incentive” program, it will have to be clearly defined and expectations set. As we move on, I write in the line next to incentive: Reinforcement. The fact is that there are as many parts to reinforcement of behavior that include incentives and recognition. A whole plan will need to be developed.
The door swung open silently but made a thud as the doorknob hit the rubber stopper on the wall. My manager returning from his call whispered an apology and made his way back to his chair. The room fell silent waiting for him to get settled. We stared in wait, looking for the update of the urgency of the phone call. He looked up and stated, “she wanted to discuss her options for a raise.” I sit looking at him inquisitively as there was definitely more to the conversation than the CliffNotes version we just received. Immediately, my mind began to work through the problem. How long has she worked for us? How many events does she work per year? Does she have any disciplinary action in her file? As a manager, it is important that I address compensation in the retention strategy. I must make the process quantifiable and achievable, so our team knows what our rate structure is and why.
I write down Compensation and move on to continue the conversation.
I wait for an opening in the conversations and interject, “we have communication, compensation, reinforcement and incentives.” Everyone nods in agreement as if the conversation had ended. The entire meeting, I have sat listening to each as they discussed, argued and emphasized necessities to the retention program. I ask if there is anything else, we should address. They look at me like guppies through the glass of a fish tank. So, I ask another question that has been on my mind as we wrestle through these topics. “How well do we treat our employees?” and quickly add, “how would they respond to the same question?” The questions hit the group like a game of hot potato as they each make small incoherent sounds and look to each other, not wanting to answer.
The survey results sit under a stapler on the corner of my desk, the contents begging to be reviewed in the group. The results taunt us as I flip through the pages. Most of the responses saying what we want to hear but several reoccurring points do not. Each manager had received these and have been debated in length on several topics, but nothing on treatment of staff. It is hard to listen to the responses that are not favorable and at first glance it is easy to make excuses or off-shoulder the blame. I read aloud, the topics of concern and we tally the responses. “Phones are always busy”, “managers are rude”, “nobody can ever answer my questions”, and “I am just a number” are common appearances. I ask again based on the content of this survey “how well do we treat our employees?”
The heads all hung low as the managers all simultaneously concluded that I had set them up for this trap. I had not. However, I started connecting the dots in our discussion and realized that we had not yet asked the right questions. Retention is a combination of many variables that answer two questions “How well do we treat our employees?” and “How well do they believe we treat them?” Retention is the connection of employee perception and reality.
I write down Work Environment which can be everything from the impact we make on our employees in the office, as well as in the field. Our employees had responded in mass, with a litany of topics to guide us. Each item an opportunity to make the environment better, but, as I look to my managers, I realize that this is the most foreign to my team. We have spent years preparing and operating our facilities with the belief that we were accomplishing our job correctly. We are now looking at the very strong possibility that we have not. In order to accomplish the positive work environment, we will have to change the way we are operating to include a restructuring of management participation.
I stand up and walk to the white board that sat in the back of the office and make a list, a reminder of topics that I will need to address. My managers continue to discuss as I add each item, one at a time to the list. I read them aloud and conclude our meeting with one last item.
I write Training as the last bullet point. We will need to restructure our training process for our employees and management team. If we are going to focus on retention, then we have to address the problem at the source. I dismiss the team, with a daunting yet encouraging task ahead of our office.
If you want a great debate over whether the chicken or the egg comes first, sit down with leaders of people and ask what is most important to retention. The debate will touch on all points: wages to work environment and job knowledge to incentives. The truth is that there are many different components to retaining employees that are important.
Retention of employees occurs when the management structure is set as a service to those employees. As with most things I have addressed in my career, I addressed these topics independently so we can focus and build upon each success. This helped me to build structure with several strategies in pursuit of the overall goal.
I have worked with many managers, all with a different opinion of how retention is accomplished. Some have their basis in fact and others in myth. Facts are the quantifiable or replicated return on investment through effort or strategy. Myths are beliefs and implications that managers make to justify actions. If you look at both, often times you can find unconventional approaches to be successful.
I separate a retention structure into 5 categories:
- Communication
- Compensation
- Reinforcement
- Work environment
- Training
I take the same approach today: an open mind and willingness to try a new direction. Many ideas were floated back and forth before the meeting concluded. Although my managers left the meeting in a similar position then they had arrived, they helped set my actions in motion. Each of them had a strong opinion of what was the most important components of employee retention.
Ultimately, it took this and many subsequent conversations with my peers, management professionals, and development trainings to create an understanding for my retention structure. I had to have an open mind and willingness to grow.
Successful retention is defined in a cumulation of elements. The structure I have developed over my 20-year career is broken down into 5 crucial categories: none being more or less important than another. Over the course of the next week, I will explore each of the categories in a series on Retention. Through my personal experiences of trial and error, as well as explanation of why this structure works, I hope to give you a better understanding of Employee Retention.