Stop Losing Your Best Employees!

Are you tired of investing your time and energy training good people only to have them go to another company? Or worse yet, they go to another company and then they try to poach more of your good people!

If you’re wondering how to stop losing your best employees, I completely understand.  I’ve heard the following many times from my clients:

• How can I motivate my team when we’ve got more work and fewer people?
• How do I increase my retention rate?
• How do I deal with a toxic leader in the C-suite?

And when a valued employee leaves, that’s when the spending really starts ramping up!  Add on 25% of the annual salary to find the next person through a recruiter and 200% of their salary to train the new employee to be as proficient as the one you just lost!

Even worse, if you mishandle the needs of a good employee, they can give-up and stay!  An employee who quits and stays is arguably far worse.  In the latest, “State of the American Workplace” report, Gallup estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. $483B to $605B each year in lost productivity.

So, what is it that you can do? You can slow yourself down and notice what you are thinking. Most people have two types of VOICES speaking to them within their own minds. Y. The first is the all about ME VOICE.

ME VOICE:

Vehicles: “I need him/her to do “X” so that I can meet my goal of “Y”.

Obstacles: “He/she is holding up progress. Things would be so much easier if they weren’t here.”

Irrelevant: “What’s his/her name again?”

Conflict: “I need YOU to change so I can do “X” instead of “Y”.

Exit: “It’s either you or me. One of us has to get out of here.”

When leaders see people as vehicles, irrelevant or as obstacles to overcome, conflict is out of control and your best people will exit. On the other hand, the WE VOICE, is collaborative and starts from a place of recognizing that you are talking with a person who has thoughts and feelings of their own.

WE VOICE:

Vision: “What if we did “X” so that we can meet our goal of “Y”?”

Open: “Hi I am curious what’s holding up our progress?”

Influence: “I know “X” is important to you. So let’s design a solution that incorporates that!”

Collaboration: “How might we go about this together?”

Effective: “It’s you and me. We’re better together than are we alone!”

Based on what you just read which voice would you rather experience? When leaders listen to their “WE VOICE” their best employees feel appreciated and valued and want to stay with the company.  Sure, sometimes employees leave despite all our best efforts, but you don’t want to wait until an exit interview to find out how to keep your best employees happy and loyal!

How do you stop losing your best employees? I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Finally, special thanks to my coach @RickTamlyn for inspiring this work.

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