Employee Retention in 2021: Emerging Trends and Actionable Strategies

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MP: Hello everybody we’re just going to wait a few more minutes for everyone to join and then we’ll get started.

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MP: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for employee retention in 2021 emerging trends and actionable strategies.

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MP: For those of you joining us on a webinar for the first time MP, is a full service human capital management services company offering a suite of products and services, including HR payroll.

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MP: Benefits administration time and attendance and compliance, we support clients with cutting edge technical solutions, as well as proactive reliable service in deep HR and payroll expertise.

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MP: And P is wired for HR and helps clients succeed by aligning their HR strategy with their business goals.

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MP: carly Watson the marketing specialist at amp T and i’m thrilled to introduce your presenters today amanda Leonardo and Sarah esperanza or sure sherm CP certified HR advisors at Mt.

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MP: amanda currently provides HR support to businesses of all sizes and previously managed HR for a nonprofit organization.

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MP: And Sarah provides HR support to businesses across many industries and she assists business owners and managers in developing and implementing optimal HR infrastructure.

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MP: If you’d like to submit a question during the program please use the Q amp a feature at the bottom of the screen and recording will be sent out later today, following the presentation, along with the slides and with that i’m going to hand the MIC off to Sarah.

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Sarah Speranza: Thank you carly and good afternoon everyone thanks again for joining us today, I just want to start out with our usual brief legal disclaimer.

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Sarah Speranza: That, though, we will be talking about various employment laws, today this training is really for educational and informational purposes only.

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Sarah Speranza: And we do not want to misconstrue any of this as legal advice we always recommend that you eat with a an employment attorney for any legal advice with That being said, let’s jump in.

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Sarah Speranza: So for presentation topics that we’re going to be covering today we’re going to start out with some top trends and employee turnover.

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Sarah Speranza: will review some stats from the 2020 achievers engagement retention report, as well as some common trends we’re seeing among our clients that i’m p.

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Sarah Speranza: Then we’ll discuss how to determine what’s driving turnover in your company specifically.

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Sarah Speranza: will review some tools and resources that will help enable you to establish the root of the issue, for your population.

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Sarah Speranza: And this will include a quick overview of benchmarking employee surveys stay interviews.

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Sarah Speranza: Some 3060 and 90 day onboarding check ins, as well as exit interviews.

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Sarah Speranza: And then finally we’ll be delving into some actionable steps to improve employee retention and that’s where my coworker amanda is going to jump on and she’ll be reviewing things such as refining your recruitment strategy.

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Sarah Speranza: Policy polishing your onboarding process conducting compensation analysis and much more.

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Sarah Speranza: So, about one in for us employees plan to leave their employer, as the coven 19 pandemic subsides and that’s according to a November 2020 survey conducted by obsess and on behalf of eagle hill.

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Sarah Speranza: So what does that mean to us today, there are many factors that are bringing employee retention to the forefront right now.

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Sarah Speranza: Among them being the obvious ongoing pandemic and its effect on the workforce, putting the spotlight on low wage essential workers and safety at work, on the one hand, while.

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Sarah Speranza: Building and managing remote workforces, on the other, we also have to remember that employees leave organizations, for all sorts of reasons right.

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Sarah Speranza: Though there will always be the instances of unemployment, excuse me unavoidable attrition some go back to school, they move retire have child care, personal or medical issues, etc.

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Sarah Speranza: But what we’re going to focus on today are the preventable reasons we see employees go and action items to correct for this within your organization.

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Sarah Speranza: So while employers cannot control for 100% of turnover, we can create a workplace culture that encourages the best place to stay and at the same time, encourages what we call good turnover.

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Sarah Speranza: So this takes some mindfulness and forethought, but it can definitely be done.

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Sarah Speranza: And while there are some large and looming factors that are beyond our control, right now, a comprehensive employee retention program can play a vital role in both attracting and retaining key employees, as well as reducing turnover turnover and it’s related costs.

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Sarah Speranza: So all these are going to incur, in turn, of course, increase your organization’s productivity and overall business performance and, as we all know, it’s much more efficient to retain a quality employee rather than recruit on board and train a new hire of the same quality.

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Sarah Speranza: So what typically motivates employees to leave their jobs, well, some of the more commonly cited reasons, and these are listed in no particular order, because as we’ll get into in the next few slides it’s a really complex.

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Sarah Speranza: Question and there’s going to be a lot of factors that go into it at your organization, but what we see often our lack of career growth or lack of opportunities for advancement, for reasons for employees, moving on.

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Sarah Speranza: We also see compensation and pay come up frequently as a top motivating factor.

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Sarah Speranza: So some survey results show money as the biggest motivating factor driving in place to seek other jobs, however, others show career growth to be the primary incentive, so it really just depends according to Ken.

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Sarah Speranza: plunkett, who is the CEO of salary COM most studies report that includes the their current jobs for better paying positions.

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Sarah Speranza: And one of the best ways to combat turnover is to ensure that pin your organization is both externally competitive and internally equitable.

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Sarah Speranza: So this can be a big project but it’s definitely doable and they say that the average increase in compensation for a worker who quits one job for another is about 15%.

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Sarah Speranza: And amanda’s going to dive more into this in the later slides talking about the specifics of how to outline a compensation analysis within your business, and what that looks like.

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Sarah Speranza: We also see employees, leaving due to lack of recognition or appreciation as a motivating factor that can come from unappreciative or flat out demanding management, which can lead to quicker burnout and employee dissatisfaction.

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Sarah Speranza: Another common thing we see is rigid or unpredictable scheduling.

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Sarah Speranza: So that’s where workplace flexibility comes in more and more employees are seeking the flexibility and a healthy work life balance.

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Sarah Speranza: And then we get into relationship management so.

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Sarah Speranza: Basically, the trust between employees and senior management and whether that’s there is there transparency between the two is there, open communication things like that, when that is missing, it tends to drive employee turnover.

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Sarah Speranza: And then, finally, the culture or respectful workplace, we see that it’s important that employees are in an environment free of harassment and a place where they’re not only allowed to be their their true selves but are celebrated for bringing their whole selves to work.

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Sarah Speranza: So workers are quitting their jobs in record numbers and the graph we see here is turn it from 2010 to 2018 so in 2000 is when the Bureau of Labor statistics began recording what’s known as the quits rate.

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Sarah Speranza: And as of 2018 the number of employee quits had increased for nine consecutive years and that trend has just continued.

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Sarah Speranza: So the last time, the voluntary quit rate was as high as it is now was an April of 2001 Furthermore, the total annual separations level has increased from 66 million in 2018 to 67 million in 2019 which is again another series high.

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Sarah Speranza: So, with that in mind.

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Sarah Speranza: we’re going to talk a little bit about why it’s different in 2021 obviously.

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Sarah Speranza: We know the pandemic has has caused a lot of changes so we were already on an upward trajectory when it comes to employee put numbers and then the pandemic hit according to a 2021 bureau of Labor statistics report the turnover rate and.

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Sarah Speranza: was at 57.3%.

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Sarah Speranza: And, as we all know, with the pandemic, causing seemingly constant changes and a people, one of which being massive layoffs and subsequent unemployment assistance, so why while we’ve all.

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Sarah Speranza: heard a lot of the rhetoric around employees not wanting to work there are also some interesting things that have emerged and some other factors to consider.

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Sarah Speranza: So this time away from low wage or demanding jobs in conjunction with some unemployment assistance has actually provided some flexibility for employees.

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Sarah Speranza: And what we see it that’s happening is some some real reflection about whether or not there any goals that they want to be doing that they’re finding fulfilling.

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Sarah Speranza: Or you know where there might be more opportunity for them to expand their skills, make more money that kind of thing, and I think, especially with the threat of covert in the background it’s just really making people think.

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Sarah Speranza: Overall, and so many of these employees have found time to upscale maybe start a business just reassess in general and plan, a new path forward.

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Sarah Speranza: Furthermore, with the year of remote work it’s also made it a lot easier for companies to court talent.

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Sarah Speranza: And for other companies to court yours so before the last year, it would have been really difficult if not impossible to imagine a hiring.

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Sarah Speranza: scenario where you would bring on a six figure executive, without ever personally meeting them, but, as we all know, that’s become the norm in the coven era so.

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Sarah Speranza: Beyond that, when it comes to remote work studies have also proven that employees would leave their current onsite jobs for an employer, with more flexibility and remote work available.

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Sarah Speranza: Additionally, are kind of the flip side of that is, those that are in remote roles now are also seeking grenier greener pastures due to burnout.

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Sarah Speranza: Expectations of being on 24 seven from home and just the inability of their employer to maintain and build a company culture remotely So where do we go from here.

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Sarah Speranza: Well, we need to build people strategies that are every bit as sophisticated and complex as those we have for things like technology sales and marketing, finance and so on.

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Sarah Speranza: So we’re going to get into the breakdown of the numbers, a little bit before we have amanda dive deeper into those action plans.

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Sarah Speranza: Here we have a chart from the research commissioned by the achievers workforce Institute.

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Sarah Speranza: and basically what they’re showing here is that of those considering changing jobs in 2021 about 36% are seeking better compensation and corporate benefits.

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Sarah Speranza: While about 25% are after a better work life balance, and we see 16% wanting.

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Sarah Speranza: More recognition or appreciation in their work, so those are the three primary factors and then you’ll see a smaller breakdown of things like corporate culture company values relationships among their peers within the organization.

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Sarah Speranza: And so, this just to provide some clarifying background was done on a group of 2000 employed adults So these are people who are currently working, and it was done in February of 2021 and also found overall that 52% are looking for a new job, and that is up from 35% a year earlier.

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Sarah Speranza: The the study also found that 46% of respondents feel less connected to their company and 42% say company culture has diminished, since the start of the pandemic unfortunately just 21% say they are very engaged at work.

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Sarah Speranza: So.

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Sarah Speranza: Now we’re going to switch to.

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Sarah Speranza: Top factors and job satisfaction.

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Sarah Speranza: Now that we’ve gone over some the reasons employees are leaving I want to, I want to touch on reasons that make them stay so.

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Sarah Speranza: Well, you would think it would be the same it’s not always and then it can also the factors can come in a different order for for what makes people stay versus makes them leave, so this is, according to the Society for human resources, and please job satisfaction engagement survey.

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Sarah Speranza: And so, while they find that fairness and transparency are fundamental and powerful concepts that make you know, a lasting impression on employees.

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Sarah Speranza: They have identified these five leading factors that contribute to job satisfaction, so the first is the respectful treatment of all employees at all levels, so you know across the very entry level workers right up to the executive C suite level.

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Sarah Speranza: And then compensation pay, as we have already talked about, that is a big one.

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Sarah Speranza: Although you know it tends to be that when employers get that piece right is is when the other factors, become more important, the third is trust between employees and senior management, the fourth being job security of the fifth opportunities to use their skills and abilities at work.

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Sarah Speranza: And so the importance of addressing these factors is obvious, but actually doing so definitely takes time and these tasks are often kind of pushed off left to another day can be hard to make the Roman in your busy schedule to do these things.

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Sarah Speranza: However, the payoff for focusing on employee retention in terms of increased performance productivity employee morale quality of work and reduction in both turnover and employee related problems can be well worth the time and definitely the financial investment.

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Sarah Speranza: So.

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Sarah Speranza: let’s talk a little bit more about the specifics of what is driving turnover within your organization.

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Sarah Speranza: As I kind of touched on before drivers of turnover are going to be really unique to your industry and organization and there are a multitude of factors to consider, so I think the pandemic has really brought this to the forefront for a lot of industries, a lot of employers and workers.

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Sarah Speranza: etc, so your industry or your work environment and safety protocols that you have in place are really going to have a big impact right, so if if employees aren’t feeling safe in their day to day interactions are at work, then everything else is going to kind of fall by the wayside.

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Sarah Speranza: And a similar status is given to pay or compensation as well, so basically you can kind of use your industry to figure out what the standards are when it comes to pay and then decide if you might be able to afford to be a leader when it comes to that.

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Sarah Speranza: We would also look at workforce demographic so where your employees on site, or they remote do they fall primarily into blue collar white collar workforce segment, do you have a mixture of both.

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Sarah Speranza: You know, are you experiencing turnover across your organization or is the problem, primarily focused within one department or one job category or you just see a constant turnover and then really delving in and focusing on those areas.

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Sarah Speranza: So the need to consider all of these factors comes from complexities of how each will interact with the other, to determine what is most pressing for your employees right now.

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Sarah Speranza: So, for example, studies find that fulfillment often becomes important after the pay is right.

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Sarah Speranza: Because there’s no one size fits all answer when it comes to employee retention, we need to best utilize the tools at our disposal.

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Sarah Speranza: To find some answers and begin making changes so next we’re going to review the tools to establish the root of the issue and and some of the most effective ones for this can include benchmarking employee survey.

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Sarah Speranza: ken’s and stay and exit interviews so let’s dive into each of those a bit more.

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Sarah Speranza: What does benchmarking basically establish establishing appropriate benchmarks both external and internal is a key first step to preparing to implement an employee retention strategy, it gives you an idea of a starting point and a place to measure success from.

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Sarah Speranza: So we first justin you look at external benchmarking, for example.

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Sarah Speranza: Is 15% annual turnover rate too high for your company, this is going to be a question that’s impossible to answer an isolation right so.

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Sarah Speranza: you’re going to need to benchmark this against the competitors in your industry and that’s going to provide some really valuable information for determining whether you have a turnover problem within your organization.

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Sarah Speranza: And kind of.

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Sarah Speranza: What next steps you can take about that you’ll also find annual and monthly quit rates as a percentage of total employment across the US, and you can.

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Sarah Speranza: find this broken down by industry geographic location and sector on the Department of Labor euro of Labor statistics website.

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Sarah Speranza: So we’ll be providing a bunch of resources at the end of the presentation and you’ll get the slide deck so that will link through to these.

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Sarah Speranza: If you want to start doing some benchmarking for your organization and then we also want to consider the internal benchmarking, so this is a way for your organization to vote.

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Sarah Speranza: You know track its turnover rate across time and look for any patterns, so if the rate increases overall among particular groups, it can be a red flag that problem might exist in that area.

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Sarah Speranza: And, and then we also have sample turnover cost calculations spreadsheets that can help you track these things over the year.

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Sarah Speranza: tracking things like annual voluntary turnover rates involuntary turnover rate a high employee turnover rate.

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Sarah Speranza: or excuse me high performer turnover rates promotion and transfer rates will all give you a baseline and I can help you measure the success of your retention programming that you’re going to implement moving forward.

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Sarah Speranza: So, once you have an idea of where we stand, you know within the industry and.

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Sarah Speranza: The workforce in general, it can then kind of dive deeper into what’s going on for our specific employee population.

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Sarah Speranza: And that’s where employee surveys can come into play, and you can really stay up to date on ever changing employee attitudes and keep a pulse on what matters most to your employees.

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Sarah Speranza: So attracting retaining training rewarding employees, they all have to reflect a clear understanding of the employees who make up your workforce.

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Sarah Speranza: and employee surveys, are a great vehicle for gaining that insight so conducting one of these surveys correctly, though, it can take a lot of work and.

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Sarah Speranza: months of preparation to have this goal properly so we’ll kind of just quickly go over the pros and cons of conducting employee surveys, just to to see if it’s right for your organization right now.

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Sarah Speranza: So the pros will be that to really carefully designed and conducted survey can reveal a lot of information about employees and their perceptions about the workplace and kind of how management can use that to improve.

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Sarah Speranza: And the organization being responsive to this employee feedback can lead to things like higher retention rates lower absenteeism improved productivity better customer service improved employee morale all good things all the stuff we want to see.

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Sarah Speranza: And just.

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Sarah Speranza: The survey can also send the message that you, you know you care what your employees thinking want to actively work to hear their contributions.

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Sarah Speranza: We will say on the flip side of that the con can be that if the senior management is not fully committed and ready to listen and, most importantly, act on some of the changes or things that employees are saying, then conducting a survey can actually.

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Sarah Speranza: lead to some really, really poor morale problems.

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Sarah Speranza: So we cannot stress this enough if your team is not ready to take action on what you’re going to find out in the employee survey, we definitely suggest holding off until there is a good time where you feel.

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Sarah Speranza: That you’d be able to address and really take the time to thoughtfully work through whatever feedback your employees have to provide to you.

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Sarah Speranza: So then, what type of surveys, do you want to conduct again this is going to come back to the goals that you are setting within your organization right so.

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Sarah Speranza: The three most common you’re going to see are the employee opinion and satisfaction surveys, as well as employee culture surveys and employee engagement surveys.

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Sarah Speranza: And then another factor, you want to consider is the timing and frequency of your surveys so.

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Sarah Speranza: organizations should conduct surveys with employees on a regular basis, most companies elect to ask their employees what’s going on on an annual basis, to get their feedback.

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Sarah Speranza: And then you also want to take a few other things into consideration, like avoiding peak holidays or.

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Sarah Speranza: You know, trying to schedule it when you have a slow time for your business that way you ensure maximum participation.

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Sarah Speranza: And finally it’s good to avoid conducting the survey during cycles that could skew the results positively or negatively so, for example, you probably don’t want to.

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Sarah Speranza: have this survey go out right during employee bonus season, or on the flip side of that during really high stress periods, so all things to consider when you put these surveys out.

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Sarah Speranza: And then the last thing will want to consider is survey designs so best practice recommends you keep it short and simple.

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Sarah Speranza: and avoid kind of double barreled questions, and that is meaning when you grew up to questions into one, for example, you’re going to want to avoid doing things like.

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Sarah Speranza: asking them to rate, the pay and benefits are excellent at this company.

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Sarah Speranza: So when you group those two together you’ll have no way of knowing if it’s actually the pay or the benefits that the employees really value within your organization, and so it won’t really you’ll be useful.

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Sarah Speranza: Statistics that you’re looking for and he enabled to help managers come up with a follow up action plan.

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Sarah Speranza: So next we recommend.

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Sarah Speranza: Some onboarding check in meetings and we kind of would suggest that you consider doing these at 3060 and 90 day intervals, for your new hires.

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Sarah Speranza: If this is just like you know something that would be way too overwhelming and not possible definitely suggest trying it out with just.

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Sarah Speranza: One so, for instance, maybe a 90 day check in and then, if you’re able to increase it from there, so starting small is always best and a key first step to ensure that ongoing conversations are happening, both at regular intervals and spontaneously.

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Sarah Speranza: When they’re needed, so the easiest way to engage new hires and ensure they stay on track, would be to implement these conversations at at these three points, the 3060 and 90 day marks and you could try initiating these meetings with.

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Sarah Speranza: Some example questions.

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Sarah Speranza: For example, in your 30 day one on one follow up you would include things like you know what do you like most about the job and the organization so far.

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Sarah Speranza: You can ask your employees what’s been going well, as well as what hasn’t been going so well and how you can improve their experience, thus far.

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Sarah Speranza: Other things like have they had any surprises, or you know, could you have done anything different in the interview process to more realistically prepare them for this role.

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Sarah Speranza: At 60 days or want to cover things like you know, do you have enough work to do is there too much too little do you have the appropriate tools and resources, you need and.

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Sarah Speranza: How do you see your job, relating to the organization’s mission and values and then finally at the 90 day check in you can delve into things such as.

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Sarah Speranza: Which coworkers may have been particularly helpful in in their onboarding process and the goal to asking questions like this is to.

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Sarah Speranza: kind of pinpoint employees that can be influential and retaining your new hires and mentoring and.

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Sarah Speranza: Furthermore, you could ask questions like you know does your supervisor clearly explain what’s expected of you and.

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Sarah Speranza: You could find tons of questions like this will make some resources at the end, but there’s there are some really good guides out there to kind of walk you through what’s important to ask at each stage.

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Sarah Speranza: And then, just at the completion of the check and you want to be prepared to address any shortcomings and individual performance or organizational challenges that may be hindering predict productivity.

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Sarah Speranza: And it typically doesn’t take much time they don’t have to be long meetings, and you can kind of head off some problems proactively and show show some strong leadership and communication skills.

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Sarah Speranza: Moving to stay interviews so stay interviews a proactive means of retaining top talent as well, and their Fries primary questions you want to ask when conducting a stay interview.

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Sarah Speranza: Following them all up by probing questions and you’ll kind of get the information you need to develop individualized engagement and retention plans that will really work for for the employee you’re looking to keep.

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Sarah Speranza: So question one would be, what do you look forward to each day when you commute to work to being what are you learning here and what you want to learn three, why do you stay here.

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Sarah Speranza: For one is last time you thought about leaving us and what prompted it and then five, what can I do better, as a manager to intern make your job better for you, so those are kind of the the recommended questions and then.

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Sarah Speranza: Like I said, do some probing questions from there and they what we recommend most when it comes to interviewing is kind of the general rules for interviewing in.

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Sarah Speranza: In any sense right you want to listen to 80% of the time you don’t want to do most of the talking, which can be the downfall for salmon interviewing and then you want to take notes, so that you are sure to capture key points, and you know you can follow up on these things and.

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Sarah Speranza: make an action plan essentially.

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Sarah Speranza: So finally i’m going to touch on exit interviews and I thought this cartoon really touches on kind of the humor of exit interviews the time being a little little too little, too late.

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Sarah Speranza: So perhaps if you opened up these questions and onboarding or stay interviews, you might not have ever gotten, to the point of an exit interview.

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Sarah Speranza: But still, these can be really effective tools and kind of serve as an opportunity for you to learn more about an employee’s reasons for leaving the company which can provide you with important feedback that you can use to improve the workplace and.

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Sarah Speranza: You know, help future new hires.

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Sarah Speranza: So.

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Sarah Speranza: The The other thing about exit interviews is it’s also kind of a way to have a positive impact on boomerang hires meaning those who leave your organization to return at a later date.

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Sarah Speranza: can be a good way to keep communication open invite trunk talent, to keep you in mind should thanks change down the road.

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Sarah Speranza: So some important questions you’re going to want to ask here are things like you know why are you choosing to leave what is, what does the company do right versus, what do you feel a company did poorly.

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Sarah Speranza: How can we improve as an organization and do you have any specific thoughts about your manager or department you work in.

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Sarah Speranza: Are there any ideas you wish, you would have been able to implement during your time here and then maybe any advice, they would have for a new person coming into their position with the company.

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Sarah Speranza: there’s also a handful of do’s and don’ts for exit interviews so we’ll just touch on these very quickly, I will say when you are doing an exit interview be sure you prepare in advance.

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Sarah Speranza: Typically it’s best practice to have a written survey so you’re asking all the same questions each employee.

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Sarah Speranza: And then they have the opportunity to really think and reflect on the questions before you have the conversation with them when you do have the conversation just make sure you’re going in free of distractions.

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Sarah Speranza: And you know also make sure the employee knows why you’re doing the exit interview some some people can be intimidated by them so just making sure they know it’s really to help the organization, improve and and that’s what you’re looking for.

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Sarah Speranza: And then.

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Sarah Speranza: See when you’re done with the exit interview some some ways that you can leverage the information would be you know, obviously, sharing the relevant information with appropriate managers or people within the company, you can create a spreadsheet based on you know once you’ve.

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Sarah Speranza: Had or implemented exit interviews for a while you’ll have some data to look at so if you’re tracking it on the spreadsheet you’ll be able to look at some trends and go back and address them in that manner.

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Sarah Speranza: And so, at this point i’m going to turn it over to amanda to start talking to you about some actionable steps you can take.

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Amanda Leonardi: Right, thank you, Sarah and Hello everyone hope everyone’s doing well.

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Amanda Leonardi: So, now that my friend and co worker Sarah has enlightened you on how to uncover what the root of your attention struggles are we next wanted to give you some tools to help you resolve those common issues and ultimately improve your retention strategies moving forward.

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Amanda Leonardi: Alright, so actionable steps we could take this in a million different directions, but I had to put my blinders on today and and focus in on what I wanted to take a look at three main functional areas surrounding how you can address retention issues and formulate retention strategy.

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Amanda Leonardi: The first is performing and analysis.

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Amanda Leonardi: Then we’re going to jump into management training.

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Amanda Leonardi: And then, last but not least, we’re going to discuss some things that you and your leadership team can do, day in and day out, that will ultimately lead to you know retention of your top talent.

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Amanda Leonardi: Alright, so a critical element to formulating a retention strategy is performing and analysis and you should really be performing an organizational analysis.

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Amanda Leonardi: on an annual basis under normal circumstances, but given you know, the state of the world over the past year and a half now could not be a more important time to analyze and take a look at your employee employee engagement and retention.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know whether you are an employer who has employees on site or an employer who has adopted a remote work environment during the pandemic or a hybrid.

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Amanda Leonardi: model The last year has really forced every company’s hand into organizational change essentially overnight.

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Amanda Leonardi: And many companies were, and you know still are trying to stay afloat and, of course, that was in his top priority, however, as things begin to.

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Amanda Leonardi: Hopefully taper off it’s it’s time to take a step back and gain perspective on how all of the changes over the past year have impacted your employees.

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Amanda Leonardi: impacted company culture and impacted the ability for you to retain your top talent.

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Amanda Leonardi: Especially now, in a piping hot job market so it’s time to embrace the idea that you know business strategy and workforce planning will will look different post pandemic.

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Amanda Leonardi: And to get started on identifying what will make you as an employer, you know, become an employer of choice, as well as what will be necessary for your team to prosper, once you know this health crisis passes and in order to build out that strategy, you really have to do an analysis.

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Amanda Leonardi: So when we are talking about performing analysis we’re talking about.

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Amanda Leonardi: analyzing a variety of aspects of your business and Sarah mentioned earlier soliciting feedback from your employees will help you prioritize you know which areas of the organization, need to be analyzed first, because you know it’s going to differ on an employer by employer basis.

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Amanda Leonardi: So one area that you may have to take a look at is your hiring process, and this is a really common struggle that we’re seeing when it comes to employee retention.

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Amanda Leonardi: and new hires have weak ties to the organization so it’s much easier for them to leave than someone who’s been with the Organization for a longer period of time, so.

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Amanda Leonardi: You really want to refine your hiring process, from start to finish, to ensure new hires are feeling invested and integrated in the organization from the jump.

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Amanda Leonardi: So first you’re going to take a look at your recruitment strategy, many companies lately have been so quick to hire employees, because they have had vacancies that needed to be filled like yesterday so.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know they’re expediting the hiring process, however.

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Amanda Leonardi: i’ve learned as as most HR professionals have learned it’s never better to just have a warm body in the role you want to find the right fit for not only the position.

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Amanda Leonardi: But also the organization so take time to build a recruitment strategy, how are you going to build a pipeline of top talent Where are you going to advertise on.

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Amanda Leonardi: What types of attractive buzz words and language are you going to going to use in your job postings so often we see employers, you know just posting the job description on job boards, but.

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Amanda Leonardi: that’s a missed opportunity, you have the ability to engage candidates and established buy in from moment number one with your job postings.

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Amanda Leonardi: Make the posting fun and intriguing and capture your company culture in the posting so that people recognize that you’re great employer to work for and are going to provide them with you know something that they can’t get elsewhere so.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know, keep in mind that all candidates approach choosing a job with the what’s in it for me mindset so be sure you capture their attention from the start.

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Amanda Leonardi: You also want to hire for culture, and not just skills, people can you know, bring their skills anywhere what’s more important is that there are cultural fit fit.

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Amanda Leonardi: Skills can be taught cultural alignment is is more innate so if new hires feel connected and engaged in your culture from the start, you have a better chance at longevity.

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Amanda Leonardi: You also need to establish a strong onboarding process there is data upon data upon data that shows that the first six months of employment is critical.

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Amanda Leonardi: To long term success in the vast majority of new hires decide whether or not to stay with the company long term in the first six months of their employment.

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Amanda Leonardi: And many companies out there have onboarding programs that address the first week of employment and that’s it However, in reality, onboarding really needs to last as long as six months to a year after the employees hire date.

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Amanda Leonardi: And and, last but certainly not least help new hires make connections as quickly as possible this you know may seem inferior to the other bullets on this slide, but I would argue that it might be the most critical.

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Amanda Leonardi: Many employees, you know stay at jobs solely based on the people that they work with so help your new hire build connections with the team, so that they feel like they have people other than their Supervisor to rely on.

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Amanda Leonardi: The trust that the team you built has their back and they feel like they’re you know, making friends at work.

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Amanda Leonardi: You also need to set realistic expectations, you know as we talked about turnover trends.

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Amanda Leonardi: trends are our highest among new hires often because you know the job doesn’t match their initial expectations so once they experience what they perceive to be the downside of a job they quit.

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Amanda Leonardi: And the solution is to you know expose potential candidates to the good the bad and the ugly when it comes to the job so they know what they’ll be doing.

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Amanda Leonardi: and have an accurate representation of that before they they accept the offer and this really starts with accurate and transparent job descriptions.

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Amanda Leonardi: And you know it’s important to set realistic expectations in those, what are the essential functions of the job is their flexibility to work from home in this role does this position, need to be you know vaccinated will the job look like.

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Amanda Leonardi: What they picture day to day you want to have all this well laid out so that the applicant can paint a picture in their mind of what a day in the life looks like.

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Amanda Leonardi: You also want to be transparent about the work environment, maybe, for example, you’re a manufacturing company and the factories is hot and noisy, you know walk potential candidates through.

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Amanda Leonardi: The the the workspace during the hottest and loudest part of the day.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know, is it difficult to take time off in the organization make that clear to applicants and you know employers tend to rush into to fill a job when you know with the first DC candidate.

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Amanda Leonardi: which can result in a poor fit and need to fill the position repeatedly so be open and honest about what the work environment really looks like.

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Amanda Leonardi: And then, as we talked about hire for culture, not just skills, make sure the person is a good fit for the organization.

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Amanda Leonardi: be transparent about what the company culture is like get feedback and testimonials from your employees.

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Amanda Leonardi: asking them to describe the work culture in three to five words and convey those themes to employees, so you just want to be transparent and do everything you can to help set realistic expectations, so that people aren’t disappointed upon higher.

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Amanda Leonardi: Okay, so compensation and benefits with Sarah Sarah touched upon this earlier.

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Amanda Leonardi: And it’s it’s not always the the top reason why someone leaves a company, however, without fail, it’s always in the top three reasons it’s very important.

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Amanda Leonardi: To people, so you definitely want to keep an active pulse on this, and each year, you should really be doing a compensation analysis to ensure that you’re up to snuff and in line or better than your competitors through benchmarking.

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Amanda Leonardi: And when you’re analyzing your COMP strategy, you want to strive to you know nail down the following objectives, so you want to identify.

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Amanda Leonardi: The organization’s pay programs and total rewards strategy, so you know you want to have a framework to this.

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Amanda Leonardi: also want to identify how the pay programs and strategy, support the organization’s business strategy so anything that you analyze and implement should.

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Amanda Leonardi: Always link back and support the organization’s business strategy without fail.

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Amanda Leonardi: And you also want to make sure that it motivates employees to perform at the best of their competencies and their skill set.

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Amanda Leonardi: And you want to make sure that what you’re implementing in analyzing is you know retaining you’re setting you up to retain your key talent and reward.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know employees for high performance and you also want to you know define the competitive market position of the organization.

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Amanda Leonardi: In comparison to your competitors when it comes to base pay incentive compensation benefits opportunities so again compensation analysis.

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Amanda Leonardi: Is separate than a benefits analysis, so you want to do the same type of.

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Amanda Leonardi: information gathering, for your benefits take a look at your pto programs your health insurance offerings your retirement benefits your disability insurance employee assistance programs educational assistance programs and see how those offerings stack up to your competitors.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know bonuses, maybe you typically provide bonuses, but due to the pandemic you weren’t financially able to make that happen last year or.

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Amanda Leonardi: Maybe you don’t typically provide bonuses, but we’d like to thank your employees for all their hard work over the past year now might be a great time to provide folks with with a little bit bonus pay and also you know.

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Amanda Leonardi: During the pandemic many, many employees have put their health and their family’s health potentially at risk by going to work every day, so you may want to consider providing hazard pay to employees to show.

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Amanda Leonardi: Thanks and recognize that they could be putting a lot on the line to show up at work.

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Amanda Leonardi: And then take a look at your employee discount so discount programs provide you know employees with relatively low cost benefits to you, and if employees can see you know 10 to 20%.

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Amanda Leonardi: It helps discounts, are you know typically on the lower end of the totem pole in comparison to the other areas of their total compensation package, but again any gesture helps.

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Amanda Leonardi: Okay, so you also need to do an analysis and build strategy around how you’re going to invest in your employees.

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Amanda Leonardi: Companies should identify and engage high performers in development opportunities for obvious reasons, but not only, you know.

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Amanda Leonardi: Top performers or a player’s you still want to ensure that their career paths for all so be sure you have a viable appealing career paths that are visible to all employees create transparency around it.

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Amanda Leonardi: and realistic framework for success and even so, with your part time workers or maybe your remote workers and.

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Amanda Leonardi: So make sure that you are making career paths available.

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Amanda Leonardi: and visible to all, one of the top reasons people change jobs is career progression, and you know if you’re wondering how to keep these employees engaged be sure you’re offering meaning meaningful opportunities to grow within the company.

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Amanda Leonardi: also consider instituting a mentorship program, so this is a great engagement technique mentorship programs inherently make employees feel as though they’re being invested in.

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Amanda Leonardi: There is no more intoxicating feeling being an employee in the workforce, as there is when you feel like your employer recognizes your potential is it is investing time, energy and resources into your long term development and integration into the fibers of the organization.

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Amanda Leonardi: And it doesn’t have to be something where you have you know mentorship meetings every day or every week, you know mentors and mentees can meet once a month, and you know this will certainly still provide value.

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Amanda Leonardi: also want to keep.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know, ongoing learning and development opportunities available to your employees, you know in this remote environment for those of you who are.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know, working in a hybrid model model or a completely remote model keep in mind that you will likely need to adapt.

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Amanda Leonardi: Learning and development programs to embrace remote workers, so you know, make sure your web based courses or instructor led courses, or on a job trainings are accessible virtually and tracked for all learners and.

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Amanda Leonardi: a really great way to do this is by implementing a learning management system.

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Amanda Leonardi: When it comes to learning and development opportunities, you really need to establish you know, a cadence to determine at what frequency you’re going to be providing these opportunities.

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Amanda Leonardi: and research shows that you know, a monthly or bimonthly basis proof produces the highest levels of engagement.

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Amanda Leonardi: So, all in all, a clear career trajectory with guidance on how to achieve goals is something current employees really look for in a company, and if you don’t invest in them, you know how can you expect them to invest in you.

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Amanda Leonardi: Okay company culture is another very common cause behind employee turnover, and this is probably the area of the business that employees are most directly impacted by every day.

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Amanda Leonardi: And the area of the business that employees connect to the most so you really have to take a time to focus and invest in fostering a positive and unique company culture.

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Amanda Leonardi: I remember when I was an applicant and a new employee, the company culture MP was palpable and was one of the main reasons why I chose to come work for MP.

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Amanda Leonardi: So that was something that was really important and continues to be really important to me, to this day, and you know.

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Amanda Leonardi: keep in mind with the shift in the workforce over the past year for remote employees company culture is.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know, primarily communicated through interactions with their their immediate co workers and managers so it’s really important to create a supportive environment, you know from the beginning and make sure that company called culture isn’t falling by the wayside in a remote world.

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Amanda Leonardi: And you know, with all that being said here is here’s some data, the proof is in the pudding and so according to the achievers workforce Institute.

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Amanda Leonardi: Report, which we will provide you a link to in the references and two thirds or 66% of employees would be more engaged at work if employers.

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Amanda Leonardi: Improved their company culture, while more than half or 52% would be more engaged if their employer improved its diversity and inclusion, so now is the time to focus on on company culture, and this is data from 2021.

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Amanda Leonardi: So I was reading an article in forbes That said, the unexamined culture is a potentially dangerous thing and that hit home words cannot be true.

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Amanda Leonardi: there’s a strong correlation between workplace culture satisfied and engaged employees, as well as business productivity and profits and when an organization’s culture is toxic everyone loses.

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Amanda Leonardi: Toxic workplaces are the primary reason why workers quit their jobs in the impact is felt so deeply that you, as you know, business leaders really do need to pay attention to that.

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Amanda Leonardi: keep in mind, even if you feel like you had a top notch company culture pre pandemic some things may have shifted and fallen by the wayside over the past year, so you really want to look inward and do an honest assessment of your company culture.

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Amanda Leonardi: i’ve been helping several of my clients with engagement surveys lately, and two of the questions that we’ve been.

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Amanda Leonardi: Incorporating are open ended culture question, so the first is what three to five words, would you use to describe the current culture of the organization.

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Amanda Leonardi: And the second is what three to five words, would you use to describe the ideal culture of the organization.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know so through asking these questions you get a pulse check on how employees currently view your culture and what employees would ideally like to see your company culture evolve into and that helps you set focus on some of the cultural shifts that you can make from there.

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Amanda Leonardi: So you really have to gain an understanding of the common traits found in the business in order to establish your your cultural strategy so identify common traits who are we, what makes us who we are.

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Amanda Leonardi: Organizations that decide that you know where they are now is not where they want to be may need to look at moving the organization.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know, to embrace a different culture and if that’s the case you want to open a dialogue with your team, so you know convene focus groups of employees.

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Amanda Leonardi: That has representation from all levels all functions and all locations of the organization, so that you can accurately assess the validity and you know significance of the the culture treats.

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Amanda Leonardi: And you know, then you want to kind of put put your money where your mouth is and summarize the findings share them with you know all participants to solicit additional insight.

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Amanda Leonardi: And then create your culture management action plan, so the plan should really enhance traits.

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Amanda Leonardi: That support corporate growth or organizational effectiveness and correct traits that might hinder a company’s advancement.

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Amanda Leonardi: and hinder the the overall company culture you then need to practice what you preach so make sure management actions don’t clash with stated values, you know if the the executives are not walking the walk employees will not be inspired to do so either.

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Amanda Leonardi: You also want to develop metrics around comfort company culture, so you know, particularly with management, make sure you’re creating metrics and holding them accountable.

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Amanda Leonardi: With alignment to your company culture supervisors, you know can really make or break.

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Amanda Leonardi: Your culture and they’re the day to day representation of the organization in front of your.

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Amanda Leonardi: Employees so you want to be sure to communicate your cultural expectations and hold them accountable to align with those expectations and behaviors and managers, in turn, should do the same with their employees, it should trickle down.

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Amanda Leonardi: And in your assessment of your culture, you really need to take an honest, hard look at whether your workplaces, one that creates an inclusive and respectful environment for all.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know, one of my favorite phrases when it comes to diversity equity inclusion is diversity is inviting the person to the party.

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Amanda Leonardi: and inclusion is asking them to dance, so you want to make sure that you’re asking everyone to dance, and you know.

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Amanda Leonardi: In addition, you, you know, want to you want to celebrate employees differences and ensure that your entire team is doing so as well, so.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know, doing an annual unconscious bias training diversity equity and inclusion training.

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Amanda Leonardi: Is an HR best practice so that you can help all employees check their blind spots, which is an essential function of being able to cultivate a workplace that lives and breathes inclusion.

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Amanda Leonardi: And then, lastly, build ties that unite, so the best employee retention practices are those that uniquely reinforce.

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Amanda Leonardi: And you know, a business culture that celebrates and unites employees, whoever they are and wherever they work, so it doesn’t need to be something that grandiose.

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Amanda Leonardi: An example that I really liked was zappos and they have their team nominate one another, so co workers nominating one another for $50 monthly bonuses and.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know this is a relatively small gesture, but it helps coworkers build bonds and appreciate one another and more than just words which can go a long way.

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Amanda Leonardi: Right another retention technique is to establish values and really lean into them so.

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Amanda Leonardi: One of the people who inspires me most on the planet is a woman named Bernie Brown, who i’m sure that many of you have heard of and are familiar with.

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Amanda Leonardi: She is a research Professor that has dedicated her life’s work to studying courage vulnerability shame and empathy and she’s written many books.

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Amanda Leonardi: One of which is called dare to lead and this book takes her research and it applies it to the workplace and it’s been wildly successful.

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Amanda Leonardi: And it’s really an ultimate playbook for developing brave leaders and courageous company cultures, so I encourage everyone to to check it out at some point.

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Amanda Leonardi: But I wanted to read you an excerpt from the book surrounding what she and her team of researchers found during their studies surrounding company core values.

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Amanda Leonardi: She says one reason we roll our eyes when people start talking about values is that everyone talks a big values game, but very few people actually practice one.

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Amanda Leonardi: It can be infuriating and it’s not just individuals who fall short of the talk and our experience, only about 10% of organizations have.

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Amanda Leonardi: operationalize their values into teachable and observable behaviors that are used to train their employees and hold people accountable.

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Amanda Leonardi: If you’re not going to take the time to translate values from ideals to behaviors if you’re not going to teach people the skills that they need to show up in a way that’s aligned with those values.

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Amanda Leonardi: And then, creates a culture in which you hold another accountable for staying aligned with values it’s better not to profess any values at all.

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Amanda Leonardi: So moral of the story is if you’re going to establish values, you need to lean into them, you need to embody them, you need to walk the walk every day, you need to explicitly teach and show employees the behaviors you want to see.

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Amanda Leonardi: and have no fear, because it feels that feels like a little bit of a of a overwhelming task, but have no fear.

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Amanda Leonardi: The great renee has created some resources to help you accomplish this so she created a step by step process for groups and teams.

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Amanda Leonardi: To you know, create shared language and commitment to a set of behaviors that align with with your core values, and we will be providing you with links to these resources in the resource page, so I highly highly recommend you check them out they’re really good tool kits.

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Amanda Leonardi: And in addition to step by step, guide of how to accomplish this she also provides an example of how you can create an outline to make your values and expected behaviors more visible and teachable to your team.

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Amanda Leonardi: All right, let’s move on to management training, I know we are.

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Amanda Leonardi: racing the clock, a little bit here so i’ll make it quick and so managers are really as we talked about the the face of your organization and so you really need to you train managers in order to.

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Amanda Leonardi: Ensure that they are putting their best foot forward to employee retention.

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Amanda Leonardi: techniques, so you really want to empower your managers, you want your managers to take the bull by the Horn and and be the face of the Organization for their respective Departments

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Amanda Leonardi: And you know, provide them with appropriate authority to make decisions encourage them to build respectful and trusting relationships with teams.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know, make sure that they’re fully informed on company values strategic goals mission and and make it known that this is the expectation.

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Amanda Leonardi: And the expectation is for them also to communicate that with their team hold supervisors accountable for you know the behaviors and outcomes associated with building highly engaged team, so you know.

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Amanda Leonardi: Give them their own engagement survey scores have them forecast each of their team’s engagement scores.

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Amanda Leonardi: and present their results to you also include a measurement on the managers performance reviews about how engaged their their team is and hold them accountable in that area.

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Amanda Leonardi: And last but not least, you want to provide managers with concrete behaviors and you know examples of behaviors that embody your values.

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Amanda Leonardi: And again my girl renee has developed another great resource for you, which is a list of sample behaviors that have emerged from their research on during leadership that you can review and align to you know your own core values.

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Amanda Leonardi: also want to teach and train your managers to practice individualization and their managerial duties so.

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Amanda Leonardi: tailor their management style to align with the form of motivation that most, meaning that is most meaningful to you know their individualized talent on on their team.

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Amanda Leonardi: And you know find ways to weave these personal preferences into how you recognize and reward hard work, as well as how you motivate and hold employees accountable.

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Amanda Leonardi: Fostering meaningful relationships, so you also need your your managers to be the catalyst and fostering these these relationships and you know, create time and space to build bonds.

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Amanda Leonardi: Have team building activities, provide an informal authentic and frequent conversations you know among your team facilitate cross departmental relationships celebrate milestones as a team and company sponsored social events.

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Amanda Leonardi: All right, and then, last but not least, day to day activities so communicate communicate communicate over communicate, just when you thought you communicated enough communicate more.

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Amanda Leonardi: scheduled team meetings scheduled one on one check ins provide clear guidelines of success and provide transparency into you know what your expectations are and what changes are coming down the Pike in the organization.

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Amanda Leonardi: Show empathy so you need to give your full attention when someone comes to you, you know with struggles validate their emotions, you need to prioritize their their health and safety.

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Amanda Leonardi: You know people have been through a lot over the past year and have you know fears for their health and safety.

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Amanda Leonardi: When they’re going to work, so you need to prioritize that and and make employees know in their heart that they can trust you and that you’re not putting them or their family members at risk.

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Amanda Leonardi: And and recognize that there are varying degrees of comfort, you also want to consider other perspective and all of this will will build loyalty.

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Amanda Leonardi: So I see we’re at the hour here and I do want to just check we don’t we didn’t get any questions in, but please feel free to submit your questions.

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Amanda Leonardi: last minute and we can we can follow up with you afterwards offline if you’d like us to answer anything for you and with that i’m going to throw it back to carly to take us home.

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MP: Thank you so much amanda and Sarah for presenting today.

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MP: We wanted to.

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MP: let you know that, yes, a recording will be sent out to you guys shortly.

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MP: And thank you again, we wanted to talk to you about our recruiting services a little bit, these are new services that we’ve got here for recruitment process outsourcing.

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MP: Our proven Roi or approach and expert recruiting team work closely with clients to bring them top talent reach out to us if you’d like to learn more.

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MP: And like I had said, we are going to be sending you guys a recording of this this afternoon, thank you for attending the webinar.

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MP: And please join us next week for employee retention tax credit updates maximizing your credit and minimizing turnaround times have a terrific rest of your day everybody, and thanks again for joining us.