North Carolina is a dynamic state. The Census Bureau places the state in the top ten list for net population gain. Forbes Magazine ranks North Carolina third in the country in its best states for business rankings. According to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, North Carolina ranks sixth as a receiving state for retirees. The list could go on and on. All levels of government, including State agencies and universities, will see the demand for their services dramatically increase. Unfortunately, this comes at a time when the baby boom population is reaching retirement age, the State continues to struggle to retain newer employees, and recruitment difficulties are beginning to mount. To meet these challenges, the State must maintain a workforce with the capacity and capability to meet the demand for increased services.
Turnover is costly to the State in many ways. With high turnover, much of the money spent on training employees is lost. Managers and more senior employees must spend time training new employees at the expense of doing their own jobs. The morale of overworked employees suffers as they are required again and again to pick up the slack for departed workers. Goals are not met. Client needs are not met. The pool of internal applicants for promotion is reduced as younger employees leave. Money is spent on temporary replacements. Recruitment costs soar. Opinions differ on quantifying the cost of turnover. Estimates range from one-half of a departing employee's salary to two times a departing employee's salary. Using the lowest estimate, turnover costs the State around $350,000,000 per year.
Improved recruitment and retention of employees is essential. The Recruitment section of the website offers help in attracting and selecting employees. This section of the website offers information and tools to help you meet customer demand by retaining employees.
Our model for reducing turnover is centered on the Employment Value Proposition (EVP) developed by the Corporate Leadership Council. Detailed information on the Employment Value Proposition can be found in the EVP section of the website. The CLC identified employment attributes that attract employees, retain employees or both. Their model was further tailored into a State of North Carolina Employment Value Proposition. While all employment attributes contribute in some way to retention, those depicted on the right of the diagram are the most important. The meaning and importance of these attributes follows.
High Performance rewarded
"High Performance Rewarded" is a system in which the most talented and achievement-oriented employees are chosen for advancement. Employees who are not recognized and appreciated (whether through salary increases, advancement or other means of recognition) for their contributions are rarely engaged in their jobs or in the mission of their organization. Managers must understand the critical need for recognizing a job well done and its impact on employee morale, engagement and retention.
Great Employer Recognition
Everyone wants to be recognized as a great employer. Being named one of Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work for in America" or Working Mother's "Best 100 Companies" would be an incredible honor for any organization.
Each year, the Great Place to Work Institute works with Fortune Magazine and other publications throughout the world to select "Best Companies to Work For" lists that appear in 30 different countries. Learn more about the 100 Best Lists at http://www.greatplacetowork.com/best/100best.php
While being on such a list is certainly something to aspire to, there are a number of things agencies can do while on their quest to make it to the top. Great Place to Work Institute defines a great place to work as "one in which you trust the people you work for, have pride in what you do, and enjoy the people you work with." The Institute says a great workplace is measured by the quality of three interconnected relationships: employees and management; employees and their jobs; and employees and other employees.
Great Place to Work Institute names five dimensions that are key to these relationships: credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie. But there are also many others, including meaning and purpose, appreciation and opportunities for growth.
Although it requires time and resources to become a great place to work, enhancing the workplace brings in results. The benefits of retaining your employees far outweigh the costs. Benefits include increased productivity, decreased absenteeism, reduced turnover, reduced training expenditures and a reduction in the difficulty of supervising employees.
Development Opportunities
Many people think of development opportunities as classroom training. But development opportunities can take many forms such as:
- Temporary assignment — An employee is assigned for a definite period of time to another job to learn that job.
- Job Swapping — Two employees switch jobs for a definite period of time to cross train them.
- Job Shadowing — An employee observes another employee while performing a task.
- Mentoring — An employee is assigned to provide guidance, advice and assistance to another employee.
- Job Rotation — An employee is moved from job to job over a period of time, to broaden skills.
- Classroom or on-line training — An employee attends a formal classroom or on-line class.
- Stretch assignments — An employee is given an assignment that is more complex than those that the employee typically performs.
- Seminars and conferences — Seminars and conferences include presentations and speakers and are typically arranged around a particular topic.
Clearly identifying competencies employees need to learn, and selecting the right technique for learning that competency, are essential. New employees need development opportunities in order to grow into their jobs. Jobs change over time as processes, technology and techniques change. As jobs change and grow, more seasoned employees need to grow with their jobs.
If the State does not provide development opportunities to employees interested in learning and growing, these employees will leave and seek out employers who provide those opportunities. In addition to reducing turnover, providing development opportunities provides additional benefits such as:
Manager Quality
Manager quality has a direct impact on retention of high-performing employees. Many studies have shown that ineffective supervisors are the major cause of turnover. That said, improving the quality of the managers in your agency will definitely lower turnover rates.
To improve management quality, you need to understand what makes a manager ineffective. Several reasons include:
- Managers have poor role models.
- Managers receive insufficient training.
- An organizational culture that encourages traits such as lack of respect and condescension.
- Managers do not receive feedback on their performance.
- Some individual managers show deadly traits such as arrogance, suspicion, impulsiveness, a need for control or narrow thinking.
Respect
Many managers have trouble yielding control to their employees. "Micro-managing" benefits neither the manager, nor the employee. It creates more work for the manager and less job satisfaction for the employee. High-performing employees want to have ownership and influence over how and when their work gets done. This is especially true of the generation of employees entering the workforce today. They need to know that their manager has confidence in their abilities. Trust your high-performing employees with flexibility, independence and decision-making autonomy in their work assignments. Solicit their opinions and involve them in major decisions. Keep your commitments, be honest and treat your employees fairly. Respect works both ways. Your organization's morale and productivity will surely benefit when you respect your employees.
Future Career Opportunities
State agencies and universities suffer extremely high turnover rates for employees with fewer than five years of service. Managers often say that we recruit employees, train them and they leave for higher pay elsewhere. But do they really leave for higher pay? Some do, of course. However, many employees leave because they see no future with State government. This is especially true for entry level employees. Many of these employees are at the beginning of their careers and State government is their first real job. If no one provides them with information on career opportunities with the State or no one provides career counseling to them, they will leave for an employer that they perceive has better opportunities for advancement.
The revolving door must be stopped. Managers must demonstrate their interest and concern with their employees' careers with State government. Many of these employees can be retained through helping them prepare career development plans, providing opportunities to grow and regularly reassessing their career status and development needs.
Job-Interest Alignment
If you want to keep your employees around, keep them interested. Employees want to feel that they are doing good work that contributes to the organization. They also want to make that contribution in a role that keeps them stimulated and engaged on a personal level. Jobs that do not make use of individual employee strengths, skill sets and interests do not promote retention. If your employees lose interest, they may leave and take their skills with them! Know who your employees are and what motivates them. Talk to them about available opportunities and where their interests may lie. Make assignments with their preferences in mind.
Ethics
Ethics has been a newsworthy topic in both the corporate and governmental sectors, with the highest-profile coverage going to those organizations where it has severely lapsed. Is it any wonder that employees would prefer to work in an organization that exhibits sound ethical practices? Exhibit ethical practices in your work and work relationships on a daily basis. Lead by example.
Work-Life Balance
Work/life balance is something that has gotten a lot of ink lately, but what does it really mean? It is about having both a job and a life. Brian Dyson, former CEO of Coca-Cola, compares work/life balance to a juggling act.
"Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air. You name them — work, family, health, friends, and spirit... — You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls — family, health, friends and spirit — are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. It will never be the same. You must understand that."
What good is it to have a beautiful home if you are never there to enjoy it? What good is a hobby if you never have free time to pursue it? What good is making money if you don't have the time to enjoy the things it can provide for you and your family?
According to Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans, "Today and from now on, organizations that are not family-friendly will definitely have a harder time getting their good people to stay." In their book, Love 'Em or Lose 'Em, they point out that talented employees do not have to look far to find family-friendly employers who offer such features as flexible work schedules, job-sharing, teleworking and extended and creative maternity or paternity leave programs. When rigid workplace policies cause family stress, people leave.
By following the step-by-step process outlined in this section of the website, you will be able to identify areas where employee retention is an issue, analyze those areas and pinpoint the reasons why employees are leaving, and identify actions to improve employee retention. The three steps to implement a program to improve employee retention are:
Step 1 — Identify Problem Areas
Retention difficulties could be organization-wide or isolated within groups of positions. Retention is also more critical for some types of jobs than others. In this step, you will identify and prioritize groups of positions that should receive attention through identifying key positions, mission critical positions and high-turnover positions.
Step 2 — Identify Attributes that Influence Retention
In this step, you will collect information on why employees stay employed or leave within each problem area.
Step 3 — implement strategies and solutions
During this step, you will identify action items for each retention driver identified in Step 2.
