4 Magic Questions To Dramatically Improve Employee Retention
One of the main reasons quoted when people leave a job is searching for “better career prospects”
But if you want to be really successful in keeping people, it’s not about creating career opportunities, but in fact about working out what it is your people want from their careers and then helping them to achieve it.
Leaders who are great at retaining people are great career coaches. They have the ability to ask the right questions of their staff, listen to the answers and then bring to life the career aspirations of their teams.
Here are 4 magic questions that will gain the committment of your employees:
1. “How are things going?” (or “How are you finding the job?”)
Choose an open question such as these to begin a conversation with each of your team. It gets them talking and allows you to build some rapport to help you move to question 2.
2. “So where do you see yourself in 3 years’ time?”
Many people will not even have thought about this and may struggle with an answer initially, so you need to be patient. If they struggle, you may need to prompt them further – “let’s play a bit of a game: in an ideal world, where would you want to be with your career / job in 3 years’ time?” Whether someone tells you they want to be promoted, start their own business or even go and work abroad - be positive, be genuinely excited for them and keep an open mind.
3. “What can we do over the next 12 months to help you get there?”
You may need to help them with this and maybe offer some practical suggestions. For someone looking for a promotion it may involve some training. If they want to start their own business in 3 years’ time, maybe you can expose them to new areas of your business to strengthen their skills, or introduce them to contacts you have. If someone needs to develop some new skills, could you offer flexible hours so they can start evening classes?
Regardless of what their goal is, there will always be ways in which your business can help them. So listen carefully and take plenty of notes.
I accept that running a commercial business is not easy and that not everything that your team ask for will be achievable. Pick out and agree on 3 things that you both believe are realistic and achievable.
4. “If we could help you get x, y, z (the 3 key things) in the next 12 months, what difference would that make to you professionally and personally? How would that feel?"
You are looking for all the benefits they would get from working for you in the next 12 months. Again make a note of these. If you deliver on your promises, these become all the reasons that the individual will want to stay with you.
This then becomes the start of discussions which you can summarise in writing so that it effectively becomes a mini “contract.”
This commits the individual to your business – they have reasons to stay with you that go beyond just pay and rewards – you are genuinely giving people the opportunity to work towards their goals and dreams. When people can see that you genuinely are there to help them achieve these things, it builds a sense of trust and loyalty that no amount of money can deliver.
But the key is ACTION. It’s all very well to have these discussions, but the key is to take the actions to deliver on your promise.
You can build these discussions into your annual appraisal process and performance reviews so that you are having these discussions with your team at least once a year – but preferably 6 monthly.
But don’t wait around until then. Do you truly want to keep your best people and build your dream business over the next 3 years? Then start now and see the kind of impact its starts having on your team….
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it” - Johann Goethe, German Novelist and Scientist
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sital Ruparelia, "The Recruitment & Retention Specialist” works with small businesses that struggle with recruitment and retention issues and helps them implement strategies proven to Find and Keep the Right People consistently.
Sital writes a FREE newsletter twice a month with tips on how to Find And Keep The Right People. To sign up now, visit http://www.authenticresourcing.com.
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