Hi Bob, it’s nice to meet you, welcome to the team… 6 months later… bye Bob, I enjoyed working with you and I hope your next opportunity is great. Just like you, I am seeing great coworkers and employees come and go quickly right now. There are hundreds of blogs and articles on this topic, so I’ll keep this short and add my two cents and then move on. I believe there are several reasons for this activity. I believe people are becoming more and more passionate and clear about what matters in their life and are bouncing around at companies trying to align their personal passions, culture, values and goals with different companies until they find one that aligns with them personally. When the job market and the economy is hot, this gives employees a safety net to quit and quickly find a company that might align more with their personal priorities. I don’t have a ton of advice on how to counteract this, but I do strongly recommend that employers get a frequent and comprehensive perspective of how an employee is doing because being surprised by turnover is very expensive. As the saying goes, it costs a company one-half to two times the employees salary when an employee leaves.
I have worked at companies that gets quarterly feedback that is pretty comprehensive, companies that have annual feedback opportunities that are fairly limited and companies that ask survey questions daily but don’t get the full picture or understanding of the employees’ health. So what is the right approach? I believe a hybrid of implementation is required. Asking frequent, brief and time-sensitive questions daily with an automated tool and reviewing those in an aggregated way to see team trends is important and necessary. But intentionally meeting with your employee/manager quarterly or more frequently based on hot topics to get a comprehensive health check is required! Most employees will not make a change in jobs without contemplating the move for at least 3 months. So this time period is critical in exposing the current health, direction and frustrations of each employee. To help me and to help my employees evaluate at their relationship with the company and articulate their frustrations holistically I created this brief survey which is a great conversation starter during manager/employee meetings. Remember, this is a conversation starter, not a form you submit and file away!
| Category | Topic | Rating (1/Low-10/High) | Importance (1/Low – 3/High) | Conversation Notes | Potential Solutions |
| Benefits | |||||
| Pay | |||||
| Vacation | |||||
| Healthcare | |||||
| Retirement | |||||
| Work Schedule | |||||
| Travel Requirements | |||||
| Job | |||||
| Type of work | |||||
| Being Challenged | |||||
| Passionate about the product/service | |||||
| Career path | |||||
| Making an impact | |||||
| Culture | |||||
| Peers | |||||
| Manager | |||||
| Extended team | |||||
| Company | |||||
It’s not the most comprehensive survey and I’m sure it could be improved, but its a starting point that gets the conversation going and provides insights on how an employer might want to change. This might seem like common sense… but I have rarely seen it done well.
Employees – if you are wanting to leave, fill out this form and review it with your manager. You might still leave, but how you leave says a lot about your character!
Employers – listen and be willing to make changes that improve your culture, operations, communications and benefits. If you are a good employer, you are hiring people that are smarter than you. So listen to what they have to say!
Moms/Dads – try this technique at home, but with a different set of topics/categories. It’s great to get constant feedback on how to improve the family relationships!