3
Few tips for Enhancing Employee retention.
Leaders can no longer afford to let the vagaries of the job market determine who leaves and who stays with the organization. We must learn to manage our human assets with the same rigor we devote to our financial assets. These seven steps can help you to accomplish retention.
1. Clearly identify which employees you want to keep. In recent years, many organizations have focused on determining which employees they should get rid of rather than on which ones they should keep. Many downsizing packages have been offered that gave all employees with
similar experience levels the same incentive to leave. Unfortunately
for the organization, the employees who decided to leave were often the high-impactperformers who could find other work quickly.
2. Let them know that you want to keep them. Amazing as it may seem, many highimpact performers who are asked why they’ve left an organization report, “No one ever asked me to stay!” Many organizations have deliberately not told high-impact performers that theywere special in any way, for fear of alienating the “average” performers. In the future, it willbecome increasingly easy to retain “average” performers and increasingly difficult to retainhigh-impact performers.
3. Provide recognition. Although compensation is an important factor for retaining highimpact performers, several studies indicate that it is currently not the most important factor.
4. Provide opportunities for development and involvement. One of the world’s largest consulting and accounting firms has recently embarked on an innovative program to identify and cultivate high-potential leaders. As part of the process, young leaders engage in an“action learning” project in which they work on real-life problems facing the firm. This gives
young leaders a fantastic developmental opportunity and gives the firm valuable input on solving real problems. It also enhances the young leaders’ commitment to stay with the firm.The firm’s leaders say that such a process would not have been tried just a few years ago, for
fear of alienating other partners, but that today the firm has no choice but to identify and retain high-impact partners.
5. Challenge the compensation plan. Organizations that are unwilling to make performance, rather than mere seniority, the key driver of pay will face an increasing challenge in keeping top talent, especially young talent. One Fortune 500 industrial company recently refused to implement a variable, performance-based compensation plan because half the employees felt uncomfortable with the concept. The corporation neglected to measure which half felt uncomfortable with more differentiated pay, but my guess is that it was the lower-performing employees. High-impact performers of the future will be able to demand and receive substantially more pay than their lower-performing peers. A “socialistic”compensation plan combined with a lowered potential for promotion will lead to an“average” workforce.
6. Relax the culture. In addition to reducing bureaucracy, high-performing, high-tech companies are known for providing freedom in dress codes, scheduled hours, and lifestyle
choices. Although employees may work very hard, they appreciate the lack of rules,
regulations, and strictures that can inhibit their freedom without increasing their productivity.
7. Provide intrapreneurial opportunities. By
allowing high-potential leaders to “run a business” inside a larger business, a corporation can
gain commitment and ownership of results while simultaneously developing people. People
who see opportunities for ownership and personal development are much more likely to stay with the organization.
In the past, when a high-impact performer in a major corporation was offered a position at another company, the employee was likely to say no. Most managerial and professional jobs offered good pay, job security, the possibility of promotion, and status. Today the highimpact
employee is much more likely to say yes. To retain such talent in the future, organizations will need to clearly identify, develop, involve, and recognize key people. Traditional compensation plans will need to be challenged, needless bureaucracy eliminated, and
intrapreneurial opportunities provided.
From United Kingdom
Leaders can no longer afford to let the vagaries of the job market determine who leaves and who stays with the organization. We must learn to manage our human assets with the same rigor we devote to our financial assets. These seven steps can help you to accomplish retention.
1. Clearly identify which employees you want to keep. In recent years, many organizations have focused on determining which employees they should get rid of rather than on which ones they should keep. Many downsizing packages have been offered that gave all employees with
similar experience levels the same incentive to leave. Unfortunately
for the organization, the employees who decided to leave were often the high-impactperformers who could find other work quickly.
2. Let them know that you want to keep them. Amazing as it may seem, many highimpact performers who are asked why they’ve left an organization report, “No one ever asked me to stay!” Many organizations have deliberately not told high-impact performers that theywere special in any way, for fear of alienating the “average” performers. In the future, it willbecome increasingly easy to retain “average” performers and increasingly difficult to retainhigh-impact performers.
3. Provide recognition. Although compensation is an important factor for retaining highimpact performers, several studies indicate that it is currently not the most important factor.
4. Provide opportunities for development and involvement. One of the world’s largest consulting and accounting firms has recently embarked on an innovative program to identify and cultivate high-potential leaders. As part of the process, young leaders engage in an“action learning” project in which they work on real-life problems facing the firm. This gives
young leaders a fantastic developmental opportunity and gives the firm valuable input on solving real problems. It also enhances the young leaders’ commitment to stay with the firm.The firm’s leaders say that such a process would not have been tried just a few years ago, for
fear of alienating other partners, but that today the firm has no choice but to identify and retain high-impact partners.
5. Challenge the compensation plan. Organizations that are unwilling to make performance, rather than mere seniority, the key driver of pay will face an increasing challenge in keeping top talent, especially young talent. One Fortune 500 industrial company recently refused to implement a variable, performance-based compensation plan because half the employees felt uncomfortable with the concept. The corporation neglected to measure which half felt uncomfortable with more differentiated pay, but my guess is that it was the lower-performing employees. High-impact performers of the future will be able to demand and receive substantially more pay than their lower-performing peers. A “socialistic”compensation plan combined with a lowered potential for promotion will lead to an“average” workforce.
6. Relax the culture. In addition to reducing bureaucracy, high-performing, high-tech companies are known for providing freedom in dress codes, scheduled hours, and lifestyle
choices. Although employees may work very hard, they appreciate the lack of rules,
regulations, and strictures that can inhibit their freedom without increasing their productivity.
7. Provide intrapreneurial opportunities. By
allowing high-potential leaders to “run a business” inside a larger business, a corporation can
gain commitment and ownership of results while simultaneously developing people. People
who see opportunities for ownership and personal development are much more likely to stay with the organization.
In the past, when a high-impact performer in a major corporation was offered a position at another company, the employee was likely to say no. Most managerial and professional jobs offered good pay, job security, the possibility of promotion, and status. Today the highimpact
employee is much more likely to say yes. To retain such talent in the future, organizations will need to clearly identify, develop, involve, and recognize key people. Traditional compensation plans will need to be challenged, needless bureaucracy eliminated, and
intrapreneurial opportunities provided.
From United Kingdom
Hi Pooja,
You can try and conduct climate surveys to understand about the employee attitudes in the Organization .
You can either hire experts like Gallup to do this or you can design and roll out a good questionnaire and prepare a detailed analysis.
Based on the inputs you should be able to identify the action areas which if addressed could give you better employee satisfaction and improve retention.
On the other hand you can work on building the professional attachment of your key employees with the Organization by rolling out schemes for executive education and professional development programs which would benefit the employee and the organization and will control the attrition.
You can also work round the compensation Portion and have retention bonuses over extended duration to enhance employee retention.
Regards
Deb
From United Kingdom
You can try and conduct climate surveys to understand about the employee attitudes in the Organization .
You can either hire experts like Gallup to do this or you can design and roll out a good questionnaire and prepare a detailed analysis.
Based on the inputs you should be able to identify the action areas which if addressed could give you better employee satisfaction and improve retention.
On the other hand you can work on building the professional attachment of your key employees with the Organization by rolling out schemes for executive education and professional development programs which would benefit the employee and the organization and will control the attrition.
You can also work round the compensation Portion and have retention bonuses over extended duration to enhance employee retention.
Regards
Deb
From United Kingdom
Hi,
I am sending you some material copied from various sites on retention tools.
Reducing Turnover: Why is retention so important?
The Cost of Turnover
As most HR managers know, the cost of turnover adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to a company's expenses. While it is difficult to fully calculate the cost of turnover (including hiring costs, training costs, productivity loss), industry experts often quote 25% of the average employee salary as a conservative estimate. For example, if the average salary is $20,000/yr the cost of one employee turnover is $5,000. If you have 30 employees terminating per month, the cost to the organization equals $150,000/month. Mulitiply that by 12 months and you have $1,800,000 in added annual expense.
Loss of Company Knowledge
When an employee leaves, they take with them valuable knowledge about your company, your customers, current projects and past history (sometimes to competitors). Often much time and money has been spent on the employee in expectation of a future return. When the employee leaves, the investment is not realized.
Disruption of Customer Service
Customers and clients do business with a company in part because of the people. Relationships are developed that encourage continued patronage of the business. When an employee leaves, the relationships that employee built for the company are severed, which could lead to potential customer loss.
Turnover spirals into more turnover
When an employee terminates, the effect is felt throughout the organization. Coworkers are often required to pick up the slack. The unspoken negativity often intensifies for the remaining staff.
The Top 20 Ways to Improve Employee Retention
The annual turnover rate among health care employees is startling. According to the Human Resource Management Association, 20.4 percent of health care employees — one in five — quit their jobs every year. The number easily exceeds the 12 to 15 percent turnover rate experienced in most other industries.
As any manager knows, turnover is expensive. One recent survey found that the average cost to replace a departing employee is 30 percent of that employee's salary. The total includes costs incurred while the position is vacant (such as overtime for other employees or the cost of hiring temporary workers); costs associated with finding and selecting a replacement employee (including advertisements, interviews and sign-on bonuses); and costs related to training the new employee.
Some turnover is unavoidable — people get married, move away, go back to school or retire. But other types of turnover are preventable. Here, in no particular order, are 20 key strategies to building commitment and loyalty among employees and improving your department's retention rate:
Offer fair and competitive salaries. Fair compensation alone does not guarantee employee loyalty, but offering below-market wages makes it much more likely that employees will look for work elsewhere. In fact, research shows that if incomes lag behind comparable jobs at a company across town by more than 10 percent, workers are likely to bolt. To retain workers, conduct regular reviews of the salaries you offer for all job titles — entry-level, experienced staff and supervisory-level. Compare your department's salaries with statistically reliable averages, such as those reported in the 2004 ASRT Wage and Salary Survey. If there are significant discrepancies, you probably should consider making adjustments to ensure that you are in line with the marketplace.
Remember that benefits are important too. Although benefits are not a key reason why employees stick with a company, the benefits you offer can't be markedly worse than those offered by your competitors. To see how you stack up, review the benefits section of the 2004 ASRT Wage and Salary Survey. It includes information on benefits ranging from health insurance to CE reimbursement to pension plans.
Train your front-line supervisors, managers and administrators. It can't be said often enough: People stay or leave because of their bosses, not their companies. A good employee/manager relationship is critical to employee satisfaction and retention. Make sure your managers aren't driving technologists away. Give them the training they need to develop good supervisory and people-management skills.
Clearly define roles and responsibilities. Develop a formal job description for each title or position in your department. Make sure your employees know what is expected of them every day, what types of decisions they are allowed to make on their own, and to whom they are supposed to report.
Provide adequate advancement opportunities. To foster employee loyalty, implement a career ladder and make sure employees know what they must do to earn a promotion. Conduct regular performance reviews to identify employees' strengths and weaknesses, and help them improve in areas that will lead to job advancement. A clear professional development plan gives employees an incentive to stick around. For more information on career ladders, click here.
Offer retention bonuses instead of sign-on bonuses. Worker longevity typically is rewarded with an annual raise and additional vacation time after three, five or 10 years. But why not offer other seniority-based rewards such as a paid membership in the employee's professional association after one year, a paid membership to a local gym after two years, and full reimbursement for the cost of the employee's uniforms after three years? Retention packages also could be designed to raise the salaries of technologists who become credentialed in additional specialty areas, obtain additional education or take on more responsibility. Sign-on bonuses encourage technologists to skip from job to job, while retention packages offer incentives for staying.
Make someone accountable for retention. Measure your turnover rate and hold someone (maybe you!) responsible for reducing it. In too many workplaces, no one is held accountable when employees leave, so nothing is done to encourage retention.
Conduct employee satisfaction surveys. You won't know what's wrong ... or what's right … unless you ask. To check the pulse of your workplace, conduct anonymous employee satisfaction surveys on a regular basis. One idea: Ask employees what they want more of and what they want less of. Also check out the results of the ASRT's recent environmental scan of the radiology workplace, which identifies key areas of concern as expressed by radiologic technologists throughout the country.
Foster an environment of teamwork. It takes effort to build an effective team, but the result is greater productivity, better use of resources, improved customer service and increased morale. Here are a few ideas to foster a team environment in your department:
Make sure everyone understands the department's purpose, mission or goal.
Encourage discussion, participation and the sharing of ideas.
Rotate leadership responsibilities depending on your employees' abilities and the needs of the team.
Involve employees in decisions; ask them to help make decisions through consensus and collaboration.
Encourage team members to show appreciation to their colleagues for superior performance or achievement.
Reduce the paperwork burden. If your technologists spend nearly as much time filling out paperwork as they do caring for patients, it's time for a change. Paperwork pressures can add to the stress and burnout that employees feel. Eliminate unnecessary paperwork; convert more paperwork to an electronic format; and hire non-clinical administrative staff to take over as much of the paperwork burden as is allowed under legal or regulatory restrictions.
Make room for fun. Celebrate successes and recognize when milestones are reached. Potluck lunches, birthday parties, employee picnics and creative contests will help remind people why your company is a great place to work.
Write a mission statement for your department. Everyone wants to feel that they are working toward a meaningful, worthwhile goal. Work with your staff to develop a departmental mission statement, and then publicly post it for everyone to see. Make sure employees understand how their contribution is important.
Provide a variety of assignments. Identify your employees' talents and then encourage them to stretch their abilities into new areas. Do you have a great "teacher" on staff? Encourage her to lead an in-service or present a poster session on an interesting case. Have someone who likes planning and coordinating events? Ask him to organize a departmental open house. Know a good critical-thinker? Ask her to work with a vendor to customize applications training on a new piece of equipment. A variety of challenging assignments helps keep the workplace stimulating.
Communicate openly. Employees are more loyal to a company when they believe managers keep them informed about key issues. Is a corporate merger in the works? Is a major expansion on the horizon? Is the hospital's CEO leaving? Your employees would rather hear it from you than from the evening newscast. It is nearly impossible for a manager to "over-communicate."
Encourage learning. Create opportunities for your technologists to grow and learn. Reimburse them for CE courses, seminars and professional meetings; discuss recent journal articles with them; ask them to research a new scheduling method for the department. Encourage every employee to learn at least one new thing every week, and you'll create a work force that is excited, motivated and committed.
Be flexible. Today's employees have many commitments outside their job, often including responsibility for children, aging parents, chronic health conditions and other issues. They will be loyal to workplaces that make their lives more convenient by offering on-site childcare centers, on-site hair styling and dry cleaning, flexible work hours, part-time positions, job-sharing or similar practices. For example, employees of school-age children might appreciate the option to work nine months a year and have the summers off to be with their children.
Develop an effective orientation program. Implement a formal orientation program that's at least three weeks long and includes a thorough overview of every area of your department and an introduction to other departments. Assign a senior staff member to act as a mentor to the new employee throughout the orientation period. Develop a checklist of topics that need to be covered and check in with the new employee at the end of the orientation period to ensure that all topics were adequately addressed.
Hire R.T. aides. To improve both morale and productivity among your technologists, consider hiring aides who can perform non-clinical duties in the radiology department. Aides can stock and prep rooms, assist with clerical duties, transport patients and process films. Assigning these types of duties to non-technologist staff will free your R.T.s to concentrate on patient care. For more information about R.T. aides, click here.
Give people the best equipment and supplies possible. No one wants to work with equipment that's old or constantly breaking down. Ensure that your equipment is properly maintained, and regularly upgrade machinery, computers and software. In addition, provide employees with the highest quality supplies you can afford. Cheap, leaky pens may seem like a small thing, but they can add to employees' overall stress level.
Show your employees that you value them. Recognize outstanding achievements promptly and publicly, but also take time to comment on the many small contributions your staff makes every day to the organization's mission. Don't forget — these are the people who make you look good!
Copied from: http://asrt.org <link updated to site home>
Bye
Prachi
From India, Mumbai
I am sending you some material copied from various sites on retention tools.
Reducing Turnover: Why is retention so important?
The Cost of Turnover
As most HR managers know, the cost of turnover adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to a company's expenses. While it is difficult to fully calculate the cost of turnover (including hiring costs, training costs, productivity loss), industry experts often quote 25% of the average employee salary as a conservative estimate. For example, if the average salary is $20,000/yr the cost of one employee turnover is $5,000. If you have 30 employees terminating per month, the cost to the organization equals $150,000/month. Mulitiply that by 12 months and you have $1,800,000 in added annual expense.
Loss of Company Knowledge
When an employee leaves, they take with them valuable knowledge about your company, your customers, current projects and past history (sometimes to competitors). Often much time and money has been spent on the employee in expectation of a future return. When the employee leaves, the investment is not realized.
Disruption of Customer Service
Customers and clients do business with a company in part because of the people. Relationships are developed that encourage continued patronage of the business. When an employee leaves, the relationships that employee built for the company are severed, which could lead to potential customer loss.
Turnover spirals into more turnover
When an employee terminates, the effect is felt throughout the organization. Coworkers are often required to pick up the slack. The unspoken negativity often intensifies for the remaining staff.
The Top 20 Ways to Improve Employee Retention
The annual turnover rate among health care employees is startling. According to the Human Resource Management Association, 20.4 percent of health care employees — one in five — quit their jobs every year. The number easily exceeds the 12 to 15 percent turnover rate experienced in most other industries.
As any manager knows, turnover is expensive. One recent survey found that the average cost to replace a departing employee is 30 percent of that employee's salary. The total includes costs incurred while the position is vacant (such as overtime for other employees or the cost of hiring temporary workers); costs associated with finding and selecting a replacement employee (including advertisements, interviews and sign-on bonuses); and costs related to training the new employee.
Some turnover is unavoidable — people get married, move away, go back to school or retire. But other types of turnover are preventable. Here, in no particular order, are 20 key strategies to building commitment and loyalty among employees and improving your department's retention rate:
Offer fair and competitive salaries. Fair compensation alone does not guarantee employee loyalty, but offering below-market wages makes it much more likely that employees will look for work elsewhere. In fact, research shows that if incomes lag behind comparable jobs at a company across town by more than 10 percent, workers are likely to bolt. To retain workers, conduct regular reviews of the salaries you offer for all job titles — entry-level, experienced staff and supervisory-level. Compare your department's salaries with statistically reliable averages, such as those reported in the 2004 ASRT Wage and Salary Survey. If there are significant discrepancies, you probably should consider making adjustments to ensure that you are in line with the marketplace.
Remember that benefits are important too. Although benefits are not a key reason why employees stick with a company, the benefits you offer can't be markedly worse than those offered by your competitors. To see how you stack up, review the benefits section of the 2004 ASRT Wage and Salary Survey. It includes information on benefits ranging from health insurance to CE reimbursement to pension plans.
Train your front-line supervisors, managers and administrators. It can't be said often enough: People stay or leave because of their bosses, not their companies. A good employee/manager relationship is critical to employee satisfaction and retention. Make sure your managers aren't driving technologists away. Give them the training they need to develop good supervisory and people-management skills.
Clearly define roles and responsibilities. Develop a formal job description for each title or position in your department. Make sure your employees know what is expected of them every day, what types of decisions they are allowed to make on their own, and to whom they are supposed to report.
Provide adequate advancement opportunities. To foster employee loyalty, implement a career ladder and make sure employees know what they must do to earn a promotion. Conduct regular performance reviews to identify employees' strengths and weaknesses, and help them improve in areas that will lead to job advancement. A clear professional development plan gives employees an incentive to stick around. For more information on career ladders, click here.
Offer retention bonuses instead of sign-on bonuses. Worker longevity typically is rewarded with an annual raise and additional vacation time after three, five or 10 years. But why not offer other seniority-based rewards such as a paid membership in the employee's professional association after one year, a paid membership to a local gym after two years, and full reimbursement for the cost of the employee's uniforms after three years? Retention packages also could be designed to raise the salaries of technologists who become credentialed in additional specialty areas, obtain additional education or take on more responsibility. Sign-on bonuses encourage technologists to skip from job to job, while retention packages offer incentives for staying.
Make someone accountable for retention. Measure your turnover rate and hold someone (maybe you!) responsible for reducing it. In too many workplaces, no one is held accountable when employees leave, so nothing is done to encourage retention.
Conduct employee satisfaction surveys. You won't know what's wrong ... or what's right … unless you ask. To check the pulse of your workplace, conduct anonymous employee satisfaction surveys on a regular basis. One idea: Ask employees what they want more of and what they want less of. Also check out the results of the ASRT's recent environmental scan of the radiology workplace, which identifies key areas of concern as expressed by radiologic technologists throughout the country.
Foster an environment of teamwork. It takes effort to build an effective team, but the result is greater productivity, better use of resources, improved customer service and increased morale. Here are a few ideas to foster a team environment in your department:
Make sure everyone understands the department's purpose, mission or goal.
Encourage discussion, participation and the sharing of ideas.
Rotate leadership responsibilities depending on your employees' abilities and the needs of the team.
Involve employees in decisions; ask them to help make decisions through consensus and collaboration.
Encourage team members to show appreciation to their colleagues for superior performance or achievement.
Reduce the paperwork burden. If your technologists spend nearly as much time filling out paperwork as they do caring for patients, it's time for a change. Paperwork pressures can add to the stress and burnout that employees feel. Eliminate unnecessary paperwork; convert more paperwork to an electronic format; and hire non-clinical administrative staff to take over as much of the paperwork burden as is allowed under legal or regulatory restrictions.
Make room for fun. Celebrate successes and recognize when milestones are reached. Potluck lunches, birthday parties, employee picnics and creative contests will help remind people why your company is a great place to work.
Write a mission statement for your department. Everyone wants to feel that they are working toward a meaningful, worthwhile goal. Work with your staff to develop a departmental mission statement, and then publicly post it for everyone to see. Make sure employees understand how their contribution is important.
Provide a variety of assignments. Identify your employees' talents and then encourage them to stretch their abilities into new areas. Do you have a great "teacher" on staff? Encourage her to lead an in-service or present a poster session on an interesting case. Have someone who likes planning and coordinating events? Ask him to organize a departmental open house. Know a good critical-thinker? Ask her to work with a vendor to customize applications training on a new piece of equipment. A variety of challenging assignments helps keep the workplace stimulating.
Communicate openly. Employees are more loyal to a company when they believe managers keep them informed about key issues. Is a corporate merger in the works? Is a major expansion on the horizon? Is the hospital's CEO leaving? Your employees would rather hear it from you than from the evening newscast. It is nearly impossible for a manager to "over-communicate."
Encourage learning. Create opportunities for your technologists to grow and learn. Reimburse them for CE courses, seminars and professional meetings; discuss recent journal articles with them; ask them to research a new scheduling method for the department. Encourage every employee to learn at least one new thing every week, and you'll create a work force that is excited, motivated and committed.
Be flexible. Today's employees have many commitments outside their job, often including responsibility for children, aging parents, chronic health conditions and other issues. They will be loyal to workplaces that make their lives more convenient by offering on-site childcare centers, on-site hair styling and dry cleaning, flexible work hours, part-time positions, job-sharing or similar practices. For example, employees of school-age children might appreciate the option to work nine months a year and have the summers off to be with their children.
Develop an effective orientation program. Implement a formal orientation program that's at least three weeks long and includes a thorough overview of every area of your department and an introduction to other departments. Assign a senior staff member to act as a mentor to the new employee throughout the orientation period. Develop a checklist of topics that need to be covered and check in with the new employee at the end of the orientation period to ensure that all topics were adequately addressed.
Hire R.T. aides. To improve both morale and productivity among your technologists, consider hiring aides who can perform non-clinical duties in the radiology department. Aides can stock and prep rooms, assist with clerical duties, transport patients and process films. Assigning these types of duties to non-technologist staff will free your R.T.s to concentrate on patient care. For more information about R.T. aides, click here.
Give people the best equipment and supplies possible. No one wants to work with equipment that's old or constantly breaking down. Ensure that your equipment is properly maintained, and regularly upgrade machinery, computers and software. In addition, provide employees with the highest quality supplies you can afford. Cheap, leaky pens may seem like a small thing, but they can add to employees' overall stress level.
Show your employees that you value them. Recognize outstanding achievements promptly and publicly, but also take time to comment on the many small contributions your staff makes every day to the organization's mission. Don't forget — these are the people who make you look good!
Copied from: http://asrt.org <link updated to site home>
Bye
Prachi
From India, Mumbai
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