Re: (OT) Employee Retention - Why do you stay, why do you go?

[johndageek]

stay	go
adequate pay	inadequate pay
work/home balance	work/home imbalance
Challanging	Boring
Valuable work	Useless work
Management truthful	Management lies
Communication	Meetings meetings meetings
Recognition for good and bad	Recognition bad only
Authority >= Responsibility	authority < responsibility
Spend money to make money	save money to make money
Listen to employees	Listen to consultants

Let's tackle these one by one. Obviously one fault with the rest glowing I may not leave, but a couple on the leave side will make me keep my options open. And,remember, each individual will be looking for different answers to each question.

Pay must meet my needs, and be competitive. Why should I have to fight you to be paid what is fair - if my market value has skyrocketed - keep me in the right range (no, top dollar is not required, but screwing an employee to the wall does not help your credibility). I will not fight to keep my salary in range, I will move.

Some long hours are acceptable, but there must be time to have a life outside of work.

Challanging work will allow me to be creative and technical, as well as stretch my abilities, without so much change that I am lost.

Valuable work is something that will be used to benefit those who will use it. (working on someone's pet project that has no or very limited value is non valuable work)

Management truthful: e.g. Do not ask a question if you have already made up your mind ( and do not be stupid enough to provide hard evidence of such an action).

Information can be shared without tying up an entire roomful of individuals. A meeting should be called to validate consensus, not to attempt to reach it.

Recognition: give both credit and blame, if you claim the credit and pass on the blame - expect turn over.

Holding someone accountable to accomplishing a task without providing the authority to do it results in stress and turn over. If you assign a project that requires help from other groups in the company - YOU not the assignee, are responsible for getting the clearances from other managers to use those employees.

Once again, Obviously you need to keep an eye on expenses and waste, but if your plan to increase profit by 10 percent is solely based upon cutting costs you are in trouble, the other side of the coin is true as well, spending money foolishly will not save your company either.

Does your company have problems? Sure it does, all companies have problems. The challange here is to get people to tell the truth rather than telling you what you want to hear. This can be accomplished by listening to something negative about your company, without being defensive or putting on "the angry face", then after the meeting, try to seperate the fact or facts that were really getting to the person from the anger and upset that drove the person to risk speaking honestly with you. If you can come back and ask for clarification of the problem points (do not ask for justification for the comments or digs made in anger), gain more understanding and ask for suggestions for improvement. You may even try to make a decision without consulting your "pet employees" (bad name but you get the drift). Guess what, the door has been opened - it doesn't take much to slam the door shut since people fear their bosses (no not quaking in their boots, but don't try to kid anyone about how "We are all equal here" - if you believe that, show me the job review that employee gave you and tell me how the discussion concerning your salary went with that person).

dageek