10 Reasons You Lose Good Employees

How to keep your best people from jumping ship

@Emily Bennington

EmilyBennington.com/hr

In 2008, I helped my company hire 23 new grads.

How many were left in 2011?

When you spend a *%&^$ recruiting people, it sucks when

they leave.

Behind every great customer experience is a great employee

experience.

#1 No Meaning or Voice in Role

• Leaders

• Values

• Behaviors

• Culture

• Performance

What really drives performance?

WRITE IT DOWN

Seriously. What do these even mean anymore?

To elicit the behaviors you want, you must clearly define them.

- Communication skills

- Innovative

- Strategic

- Adaptable

- Customer-focused

- Attention to detail

- Commitment

- Influential

- Trustworthy

- Accountable

- Collaborative

- Resourceful

- Team Builder

Hilton Worldwide values are:

Hospitality Greet every guest with eye contact and a smile. Embrace all guest requests with flexibility and humor.

Integrity Maintain guest privacy and confidentiality. Build trust by continually exhibiting honesty and respect. Follow through on commitments and keeps promises.

Leadership Proactively and appropriately takes responsibility to be informed and to inform others. Offer constructive, honest feedback when needed.

Teamwork Go “over and above” to help coworkers when needed. Recognize the contributions of others and affirms / celebrates their successes.

Ownership Hold oneself and others accountable for behaviors, actions, and results. Take full accountability for mistakes and works to carefully and rapidly repair and learn from them.

Now Respond to all guests within five minutes. Take action to inform guest of expected resolution if unable to fulfill a request immediately.

1. Greet every employee and / or client with eye contact and a smile. 2. Consistently treat others with courtesy, respect, and kindness. 3. Embrace all client requests with flexibility and humor. 4. Demonstrate a positive , optimistic attitude at all times. 5. Maintain client privacy and confidentiality. 6. Report hours accurately and honorably. 7. Build trust by continually exhibiting honesty and respect. 8. Follow through on commitments and keep promises. 9. Use appropriate humor in interactions with others. 10. Serve as a “walking example” of company values. 11. Consistently seek opportunities for improvement. 12. Proactively and appropriately take responsibility to be informed and to inform others. 13. Offer constructive, honest feedback when needed. 14. Clearly communicate ideas to others. 15. Inspire others to think outside the box. 16. Go “over and above” to help clients and coworkers when needed. 17. Seek and embrace feedback. 18. Respect and encourage differing opinions. 19. Recognize the contributions of others and affirm / celebrate their successes.20. Hold yourself and others accountable for behaviors, actions, and results. 21. Take full accountability for mistakes and work to carefully and rapidly repair and learn from them.22. Seek to not only fulfill guest requests, but to anticipate what they might need next. 23. Respond to all customer concerns / complaints immediately. 24. Take action to inform clients of expected resolution if unable to fulfill a request immediately.25. Exceed expectations when responding to needs in an efficient and timely manner.26. Offer simple solutions to improve performance. 27. Make the complex simple. 28. Focus on what really matters. 29. Tell the truth, even when it’s hard. 30. Believe that soft skills have hard, bottom-line results. 31. Take your job seriously, but not yourself. 32. Lead with energy, humility, joy and fun. 33. Tenaciously overcome obstacles. 34. Return all emails and phone calls by the end of the day. 35. Practice random acts of kindness to customers and colleagues. 36. Role model initiative, responsiveness, and skill in crucial conversations. 37. Actively maintain appropriate boundaries and professional relationships. 38. Consistently seeks opportunity for improvement. 39. Exercise personal discipline and rigor to achieve exceptional team results. 40. Demonstrate outstanding execution, delivering quality work products that are on time or ahead of schedule. 41. Take responsibility for personal well-being. 42. Practice an open door policy. 43. Take initiative to solve problems. 44. Be solution-oriented, treating problems as opportunities. 45. Improve and remove non-strategic costs. 46. Maintain tight cost controls on personal and team expenses. 47. Ensure work space (personal and common) is neat, clean and organized. 48. Work overtime when needed to support team efforts. 49. Respond constructively when others offer ideas. Even if you think the suggestions are off the mark, hear them out.50. See the best in everyone always. 51. Represent the company in a professional manner at all times – be a champion of your workplace!

Go ahead. Steal ‘em.

www.EmilyBennington.com/hr

#2: Realism in Recruiting.

Don’t take a sales approach to your culture.

#3: Onboarding

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I

say orientation?

This?

Contr

ibu

tion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Breakeven point = Net contribution zero

Months After Entry

Source: Michael Watkins, Your First 90 Days

When Do New Employees “Break Even?”

Other

The first five years

The first two years

The first year

The first six months

The first month

The first week

The first day

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Timeframe an Employee Makes a Decision to Stay

Focus on smaller bits of information over a longer period of time.

#4Set Written, Measurable Goals.

Keeping your keepers.

In a study of more than 584 employed Americans, how many hadn’t established any career goals in collaboration with their manager?

Source: Kelton Research / Cornerstone OnDemand Employee Attitude Survey, 2009

82%

Many complaints about underperformance really stem from two things:

Written goals matter because…

Poor communication

Unclear expectations

Without written performance standards, employees measure themselves against:

Each other

#5. Be super clear about promotion channels / career paths.

Got staff who want to be these guys?

Fine.

Make ‘em prove they’re worth it.

#6: Give Feedback In the same study of more than 584 employed Americans, how many hadn’t received any kind of useful feedback from supervisors in the last six months?

Source: Kelton Research / Cornerstone OnDemand Employee Attitude Survey, 2009

58%

Say “Hello” to Your Little Friend.

Yes. I know you can’t read this.

That’s why there’s a sample at

EmilyBennington.com/hr

#7: GET Feedback.

Go on.

Ask me what I think.

Four Promises You Should Make to Every Employee

1.) You will work to develop them as people in alignment with company goals.

2.) You will give them the resources they need to do their job effectively.

3.) You will provide them with transparent and frequent communication.

4.) You will hold them accountable for clearly-defined performance

standards.

You should also measure for these.

1. Micromanagement

2. Ambiguity

3. Chaos

#8. Give them a MAP

“Crunch numbers? Psshaw!”

The Dixon Hughes “P” Test

#9: Mo Money. Less Turnover.

#10Great managers.

But you still need…….

Hold your managers

accountable for how employees answer survey

questions about them.

“The only thing worse than training employees and losing them, it NOT training

and keeping them.” – Zig Ziglar

EmilyBennington.com/hr

Emily BenningtonFacebook.com/EmilyBennington@EmilyBenningtonemily@emilybennington.com

Questions.