Talent retention starts with you

by Douglas E. Welch

10/28/96

You've heard it so many times before: No one's irreplaceable. Try telling that to someone who's just lost the most talented person on staff. Unless there is someone of equal talent waiting in the wings, the loss of all those years of experience will be felt for months to come, as the search for a comparable replacement drags on.

It's enough to make shorthanded managers wish they'd done more to induce their brightest talent into shoving competitors' offers aside. While it's true that you may not be able to prevent the departure of someone who's really decided to move on, you can make jumping ship appear less attractive.

It all starts with keeping your people happy. A good first step in that direction is to avoid excessive overtime and the burnout it can cause.

When overtime becomes a regular occurrence instead of the occasional need to snub out an unexpected fire, there is a serious management problem. Instead of continually pushing people to work 50, 60 or more hours a week, check to make sure projects are being planned realistically. Perhaps a larger staff is needed or end users need more training so they don't overtax your support staff. Whatever the problem, excessive overtime will quickly drive staffers to jobs where 40 hours is considered the norm.

Stand by your people

Another step in the right direction is to let staff know you'll go to bat for them when something isn't right. This might include battling excessive bureaucracy that stands in the way of getting their jobs done. For example, you can hammer out a compromise with an accounting manager to revamp burdensome purchase order procedures for new equipment or streamline the process for approval of project plans.

Supporting your staff when its called for can aid in gaining back the loyalty between employer and employee that has been scarred by downsizing.

While there may not be much you can do to prevent executives from trimming positions to be responsive to shareholders, you can understand that downsizing introduces fear as a motivator. Fearful that they may lose their jobs, good people will seek employment elsewhere.

Review your review process

Anything you can do to reduce fear is well worth the effort, and that includes making performance reviews a positive experience rather than a discipline tool. Reviews are often conducted too infrequently and are used to point out the negatives in performance.

Reviews should be done more than once a year. In fact, every meeting between a manager and staffer should be considered part of the review process. Nothing is more distressing for an em-ployee than being blindsided during a review with a problem that occurred months ago or one that has already been corrected.

In addition to regularly scheduled reviews, a postmortem review should be performed at the end of each major project. This enables you to review events while they are still fresh in everyone's mind. Any lessons learned can then be applied immediately to ongoing projects, and you can set goals for the employee.

The long and short is that retaining valued workers helps keep companies successful. When star performers leave, they take their knowledge with them even if you've attempted to capture it in a knowledge base. That knowledge can, and often does, go straight to a competitor.

So isn't it better for everyone involved to retain talented employees? They might be more difficult to replace than you think.

Welch is the former director of MIS for Hollywod Online, a major Internet content provider, and is now a computer consultant and freelance writer in Van Nuys, Calif. He can be reached at dewelch@ earthlink.net.