Today’s young professionals feel more empowered than ever to find a job they love. That means they won’t hesitate to hop from one job to the next until they find the best fit. Show Technology has enabled a nonstop job search. According to the 2015 Jobvite Job Seeker Nation Study, 45 percent of employees surveyed would switch jobs, even though they are satisfied with their current one. Because of this, HR professionals are always looking for ways to keep employees engaged and curb wandering eyes looking out for better opportunities in the peripheral. Here are five P’s you can use to prevent current employees from searching for a new job: 1. Provide new growth opportunities.“Career growth” ranked most important of all aspects for a first professional job in an online survey conducted by ORC International in March. Following closely behind is job security, and it’s not hard to see why. Many of these young professionals entering the job market witnessed the economic recession, and as a result, career growth and stability has risen to the forefront as a top need. Check in with employees regularly to find out what about their job they enjoy the most. Ask what else they’d like to learn. Allow them to shadow you or others in the company from whom they could learn desired skills. Trumpet opportunities for promotions and leadership roles into their ears. Provide a visible path with tactical steps they can take to earn those roles. 2. Pay employees what they’re worth.When workers feel underpaid, they will leave, according to the Jobvite Job Seeker Nation Survey, 32 percent of job seekers leave for higher compensation. Start with a fair base salary for everyone. Give monthly bonuses to top performers so everyone is paid according to the work they do. Even a small amount, like $100 or $200, makes a difference. 3. Prioritize employees’ health and well-being.If your employee is happy and healthy, they’ll perform well for your organization. That might be why 89 percent of executives recently surveyed by Harris Poll are advocates for offering the best available well-being programs at work. In fact, 83 percent of executives believe that employee wellness programs can prevent employees from feeling burned out. There are several ways you can encourage healthy lifestyles among employees. Offer a gym membership as part of a benefits package. Allow employees to come into work late or leave early once a week for a yoga or group exercise class. Work with employees’ schedules to balance their personal health initiatives with office hours. 4. Put yourself in employees’ shoes.People are quick to make judgments about how “easy” someone’s role is or compare what they do to what others do. Clear up any misconceptions by giving employees first-hand experience in leadership roles, and vice versa. Once a year, schedule leaders to switch roles with each type of employee so each can get a feel for the other’s job. Employees will experience how challenging it is to lead people, and leaders will gain a new perspective working with challenges employees face everyday. It will create empathy and understanding between the two roles. 5. Praise employees regularly for great work.Employees need to know what they do for your organization matters. If you don’t communicate to them how they make a difference, they’ll go somewhere that will. Make time throughout your day to say “thank you” to employees for their work, remind them of what a great job they’re doing, and explain how they’re a valuable part of the team. With technology providing us access to tons of information, employees will only become more elusive to retain. Your employer brand is on the front line against other companies that threaten to take better care of your talent than you. So don’t let them. Mind the five Ps, and prevent your talent from going elsewhere. Have you ever caught one of your employees searching for a new job? What did you do?Heather R. Huhman is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder & president of Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for job search and human resources technologies. She is also the instructor of Find Me A Job: How To Score A Job Before Your Friends, author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships (2011) and #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for numerous outlets.
It’s Friday afternoon and one of your employees asks for a private meeting. Before you even close the door, she tells you she’s found another job and is leaving the company. Once you get over the shock, how should you respond? How do you cover her responsibilities? And how do you make sure that the rest of your team isn’t overburdened when she leaves? What the Experts Say Know the protocol Don’t emote
Ask for a rationale Consider a counter offer — or not Collaborate and communicate Transfer knowledge Make a hiring plan Have a party Then take time to reflect Principles to Remember: Do
Don’t
Case Study #1: Be creative and accommodating about knowledge transfer Once the surprise wore off, Ken relaxed. “You have to remember in these situations that you’re dealing with people. I want people to be happy, and I want them to have opportunities to move up in their lives,” he says. With a warm and friendly attitude, he congratulated Louise on her new job and asked what drew her to the new company. “I probed a little on what they were offering that we couldn’t. It was a little like an exit interview; her answers gave me insights into what I need to do to retain people.” Louise was under pressure to start at her new company as soon as possible, but Ken explained that he needed her help in bridging the transition. As a compromise, she worked part-time for both companies for two weeks and agreed to make herself available should questions arise after her departure. Ken made a companywide announcement about Louise’s resignation. “I wanted to open the lines of communication right away so that everyone would think: What do I need from this person before her departure?” He also immediately began looking for a replacement. He even asked Louise if she knew of anyone who would be a good fit for the job in front of his whole team. “I wanted everyone to know that we are all engaged in looking for a replacement,” he explains. Case Study #2: Preserve professional relationships — even long after the resignation Julie* told René she was leaving the company for her dream job in the fashion industry. Outwardly, René took the news well. “I didn’t want to react negatively. I told her I was happy for her and asked when her last day would be,” she says. But the news was a blow. Julie handled everything from scheduling travel to creating market reports for the eight-person company. “Her leaving meant that all that work would be on my shoulders,” René says. Previously, she asked resigning employees to leave immediately so as not to dent morale, but she asked Julie to work during her two-week notice period mainly because she “needed her to keep doing everything she had been doing,” she says. During this time, René got in touch with a former Charlie Bravo employee, Mary*, who had left the company on excellent terms a few years earlier. The two women had stayed friendly on Facebook and recently bumped into each other. René knew Mary was looking for a new role. “She knew our company and she knew our culture,” René says. The day after Julie left, Mary took over her job. “It worked out amazingly well,” says René. “When I was younger, I took it personally when people resigned. I don’t do that anymore. From a professional standpoint, it’s so important to maintain relationships because you never know when you might need that person in the future.” * Not their real names |