the three reasons people stay at jobs.
by ed mendlowitz
the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 practice doctor
question: i know you advocate hiring out of school, but that seems to present a danger when they leave after we have invested so much in training them. what can be done to retain them longer, if that is possible?
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answer: unless everyone you hire will become a partner, you will have people leaving. that’s just a fact of life.
the issues then become how to keep them longer, and how are you better off in the long run – hiring out of school, or going with experienced staff.
the first issue is who to hire. when you hire someone with two to three years experience with a comparable or similar-size firm you are hiring someone who probably left their job because they “did not get good experience” or “stopped learning and growing.”
and you are hiring them because they are “experienced.” duh!!!??? even if they were getting good experience at the beginning, at what point did that stop? it did not stop the day before they decided to leave. it reasonably had to stop at least a year earlier. so what you getting is someone with much less experience than you are hiring for, paying for, and need.
no matter who you hire, whether a recent graduate or “experienced” two- or three-year person, or an experienced 10-year person, you will have to do some training. that cannot be avoided.
i believe it is easier to train a raw beginner than de-train someone with the wrong experience and inadequate training.
bear in mind that there are always exceptions but i think they are too few and far between to base your growth on them.
your next issue is retention. i believe there are three main reasons people stay at a job: money, growth and experience. any two will keep most people from leaving. all three provide you with the security of having a stable workforce and reduce the time you need to hire and train entry-level people all over again.
money is easy; pay well, pay for overtime hours and give generous and frequent raises. growth is the opportunity for your staff to learn. they should learn something new every day. and if not daily then weekly. when the learning stops you will lose them.
it is your job to see that they are working on new things, new situations and new types of clients.
they need to be pushed, even though it is for their benefit – that is how it is. they also need experience and mainly new experiences, new issues, types of clients, and empowerment to make decisions and to be able to train and supervise people. this cannot occur if your firm is not growing or if you are not willing to turn over most of what you do.
note that i did not include working conditions in my three reasons. if these three are met, the conditions are not that important (but they are not unimportant so do not neglect this).
here is a comment about a firm that is not growing. the growth and experience will not occur. at some point, you will lose your staff unless they are the type of people who are as satisfied with the status quo as you are. then, do not complain – it is what it is – and enjoy what you have.
2 responses to “the secret recipe for staff retention”
frank stitely
the old management joke goes “you can train people, and they’ll leave. or, you can not train them and they’ll stay.” i did an analysis of this for “the relentless cpa” and paying for training always works out in the long term financially. even if you only keep a trained person for an extra year, the increased billings and higher level work easily pay for the training.
ed mendlowitz
you are right on the mark frank. train. train. train!