By: Elizabeth Weihmiller
Have you ever taken the time to figure out how much turnover is costing your company?
Many businesses we talk to and hear about have no issues with just firing and rehiring, but, what if by doing this you were missing the diamond in the rough? Maybe all that person needed was development, coaching, or training and you just “tossed them” aside in order to go out and look for the house that’s finished head to toe, just the way you want it. What is the cost of recruiting a new person and how do you guarantee that they have everything you need and are looking for and will do the job the last person wasn’t “capable” of doing?
It may be time to reshape your thinking. Instead of immediately firing employee “A”, give them that chance to expand their skills to better do the job that you are looking for to be done, through training, coaching and/ or development. Retention can cut your cost on hiring drastically. It can also, when done right, create a cohesive, productive, profit generating culture where individuals are able to collaborate and grow.
Now as a disclaimer I am not saying there is not a time when you may have to let an individual go because it just isn’t a job/ company match. After giving them full opportunity to change and that includes giving them feedback. We find that one of the biggest things is that when someone is fired for reason “Z” they didn’t even know it was an issue. Why? You ask…because they never received feedback that they had room for improvement, or that they weren’t doing things that needed to be higher priorities.
But back to retention: If you allow your staff the opportunities to learn, grow and improve, to get coaching, they will use those opportunities to help improve the organization as a whole. It is a win-win situation for both parties and the cycle continues.
We have a client who looks at it this way: if they continually help the person become better and better and that person happens to outgrow the company then they view they have done their job. They don’t view it as wasted money because they were able to get what they needed from that person at the time they needed it. It was a worthwhile investment to them.
Just a few thoughts as you look at how to take your company to the next level.
- What can you do to retain individuals and find the diamonds in the rough?
- How will training them to what your company needs truly help take the organization to the next level?