The Publicists Assistant

The Forgotten Employee Retention Interview

September 18th, 2009 | Author: Assistant

As part of their talent management efforts, most organizations know the wisdom of conducting exit interviews (although they often don’t conduct them properly!), and why they should also conduct “stay interviews” with valued employees to determine why they stay, and what will retain them.

In addition, many organizations also regularly conduct employee surveys, increasingly asking questions about job satisfaction, commitment, and the likelihood of the employee leaving the organization within the next 6 months or year.

All of these are wise efforts for uncovering why valuable employees stay or leave so the organization can make improvements, retain more talent, and substantially reduce its employee turnover costs.

However, there’s another interview most organizations don’t conduct, yet it has great potential to help stop future talent losses in specific jobs or divisions, or with employees reporting to certain managers.

It’s what I call “The Forgotten Employee Retention Interview,” and it can help you get direct information about why other valuable employees may leave.

You conduct it after losing one or more valuable employees from a specific department or division, or who report to the same manager, and when you suspect you could lose more.

Here are several action steps you can take:

1) Select Groups Representative of Employees Leaving

For example, if staff accountants with three to seven years of experience have been leaving, and you suspect others may do so, then you want to conduct small group interviews with staff accountants with three to seven years experience.

Or, if home health aides with less than six months employment have been leaving, then you want to conduct small group interviews with other home health aides with less than six months employment.

2) Divulge Your Purpose Up Front

a. Tell the group your purpose is to get input in order to reduce employee turnover and improve the organization as a whole.

b. Let the groups know who will see the information, and how it will be used.

c. Pledge to the group their information will remain anonymous.

3) Ask Indirect Questions

Avoid putting your participants on the spot by asking direct questions about specific people, such as “Why did Frank leave?”

Instead, ask them indirect questions that will help them feel comfortable about providing candid information.

Some examples:

“Why might some staff accountants (or other position) want to leave our organization?”

“What might improve our organization so more staff accountants will want to stay?”

“What might cause other staff accountants to leave our organization in the future?”

>The reasons they give you for why some staff accountants have left, or might leave, are likely to be the same reasons that apply to themselves, and other employees who are similar to them.

Now you should have some highly valuable information to improve your staff retention efforts.

4) Interview Groups of 6 to 12 Participants

You’ll get your best results if your groups have 6 to 12 participants in them, and if you have more than one group (if possible) so you can compare input.

5) Consider Using an Outside Resource

Employees will typically share more candid information with third party sources than with internal staff; plus, outside parties are more credible when promising confidentiality.

This is the type of employee retention strategy I like to recommend because it doesn’t require substantial amounts of time, money, and expertise or expensive outside consultants, yet it can return large benefits.

The more “Forgotten Employee Retention Interviews” you conduct, the less employee turnover you’ll have, and the fewer exit interviews you’ll need to conduct.

(ArticlesBase ID #1245956)

Ross Blake, the Employee Retention Manager, shows small to medium size employers, businesses, and HR professionals how to increase employee retention and save thousands of dollars by reducing employee turnover costs including recruiting and hiring expenses.

He has authored How to Retain More New Hires and How to Develop An Employee Retention Blueprint for Your Organization.

Learn more and get this special free report, “Five Employee Retention Strategies Outstanding Employers Use,” http://www.EmployeeRetentionManager.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/human-resources-articles/the-forgotten-employee-retention-interview-1245956.html