Ask some CEOs if they believe their key people are reading the ‘want ads’ and they will invariably tell you that these job seekers are the ones they wouldn’t miss anyway. What a mistake to be lulled into that kind of thinking!

In reality, your people are exposed to a wide variety of appeals for open jobs, whether it is via the Sunday paper or a call from a recruiter. My belief is that at some point in time, every employee imagines what it might be like to work for another firm. Because of this, one of the greatest challenges for the manager, and for corporate HR, is to develop a retention plan that actually works.

The first step in any good retention plan is to know more about the reasons behind staff departures — information that isn’t always clear after the dust settles. Most people will not want to share the realities with you in their exit interview.

Think about the reasons you’ve assigned to the departures of your best people. Do you recall that Janice “needed a change,” or that Ashok simply “negotiated a better salary outside?” In reality, while these reasons do sometimes show themselves, they generally aren’t driving the top performers. Recently, while researching this topic for a client, I discovered there are seven areas that companies need to examine closely in order to close those floodgates.

While no organization has a 100% retention rate, there are indeed companies that have made a difference in the number of people leaving their firms. They’ve done so by being proactive, by recognizing in advance the reasons for staff departure and taking action.

Recruiter-Proof Your Company
In The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, by Leigh Branham (second edition, Amacom, 2012), the author describes these seven reasons and then supports them with such detail that I was convinced this book was written for the bio/pharma industry.

As a headhunter, I’ve listened for years to candidates who tell me about their frustrations and concerns with their employers. In these conversations, it was clear that higher compensation wasn’t always the key to attracting the better candidates. For a recruiter, success generally lies in identifying the real motive behind a person’s potential interest in leaving.

Branham’s hidden agendas — those that recruiters work so hard to uncover — are laid out for the reader, as is a plan to eliminate them forever while keeping top performers happy and productive on the job.

Here are those seven reasons, along with my own commentary about the application of these ideas into our industry sector:

1. The job or workplace was not as expected: This is often the reason behind departures that happen within a year or two of the employee start date. In fact, it could be the top reason that people change jobs. Employers that recognize this will spend more time identifying the candidate’s expectations during the job interview, while making certain that no promises are made that can’t be kept. Be direct and open about the reality of the job during that dialogue. It is better to divulge the truth about a job beforehand; a lost candidate is far easier on the company than a lost employee.
2. A mismatch between the job and person: Branham provides research that shows more than 80% of workers feel that they do not use their strengths on a daily basis. Some managers belief that employees are simply interchangeable parts that can be used for any job at hand; for this sort of problem, that’s a shortcut to disaster. Leigh Branham suggests that companies develop a “passion for matching,” in which managers spend more time determining the fit with less pressure to fill open jobs. It is vital for managers to know what strengths an employee has — those that they can back up with results — and to make certain they are using these skills.
3. Too little coaching and feedback: In order to stay motivated and engaged, your people must know that they are on the right track, through regular feedback mechanisms and from bosses who utilize something more than a hands-off leadership style. Research has shown that only 35% of those employees who are considered highly talented feel their companies tell them openly and candidly where they stand. Have you sat down with your people lately to give them guidance, and to tell them how they are doing?
4. Too few growth and advancement opportunities: Even in a relatively flat organization, employees who perform well should achieve career growth, recognition, and lots of self-satisfaction. Oftentimes, employees leave because they just can’t see what their career path really looks like, or they had unrealistic expectations to begin with. It is important for managers, and for HR, to make clear how career paths work, and to illuminate forecasts of company talent needs.
5. Feeling devalued and unrecognized: Satisfaction and recognition-based reward systems can make a big impact in this area. Research done by the Saratoga Institute determined that, in a healthy job market, a pay increase of 5% is all it takes to attract an unhappy employee, but in that same market it takes an increase of 20% to attract the interest of an employee who is happy on the job. For my dollar, I’d invest in programs that increase job satisfaction.
6. Stress from overwork and work/life imbalance: In our industry, stress can really pile on as a result of the hours that employees work and the terrific pressure for deadlines. More and more companies are developing programs that improve the work/life balance of their people. They realize that this brings not only the obvious health and happiness benefits, but also a great reduction in turnover. More than 70% of employees believe that they do not have a healthy balance between work and the rest of their lives.
7. Loss of trust and confidence in senior leaders: As a result of years of corporate scandals and the high salaries of CEOs, more than 82% of Americans believe that company executives help themselves at the expense of their companies. Employees often feel this loss of trust in management because of poor communication from the top. Your people want to know if they can trust management to get the company where it needs to be — and whether they can trust what management does and says. A good internal communications program can solve much of this problem.

Changing Loyalties
My father, a 40-year veteran of one company, once asked me, “Where did the concept of company loyalty go?” Downsizings had become the order of the day for his firm and so many others, and he was continually frustrated by attitudes from his team of young engineers as well as from top management. Yes, the whole concept of loyalty has sure undergone some change.

A contact of mine from career transition firm Drake Beam & Morin described the modern concept of loyalty to me. “What we see nowadays in the biotech or pharmaceutical company is not the company flag-waving,” she said. “Instead, it is what we call ‘situational loyalty,’ where people are held together by team or project loyalties, perhaps fostered by group leaders and not by company presidents.”

If you are a team leader or manager, you have the power to keep your company’s retention rate where it should be, by a solid understanding of Leigh Branham’s seven rules above.

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David G. Jensen is Managing Director of Kincannon & Reed Executive Search (www.krsearch.com), a leading retained search firm in the biosciences. You can reach Dave at (928) 274-2266 or via [email protected].