An employee retention testimonial from Qantas

A testimonial from Qantas Airways Limited

"Qantas has engaged Retention Partners for over 2 years and we could not be happier with the great partnership we have formed.

They provide us detailed reports based on thorough conversations with our ex-employees. Qantas has in turn been able to adapt key HR processes and this has resulted in significant improvements in the feedback we received for targeted groups.

Lisa and the Retention Partners team have gone to great lengths to understand the needs of Qantas, and ensure that their products can be used to inform and influence the change agenda. I could not recommend the services of Retention Partners and Lisa strongly enough."

Please contact Lisa or Gemma on 1300 73 83 71 for a chat about your retention concerns. We would be delighted to help.

Exit interviews tell the truth

Want to know why employees did leave not why they might leave?

















Exit interviews are the only way to get candid unsensored feedback from those that have left an organisation.

What was the trigger that caused them to resign? What would have made them stay longer? How long did it take the to resign?

Wouldn't it be nice to have to have the foresight to manage potential future resignations?

http://retentionpartners.com.au/workshops.php

Exit interview workshops can help make your exit interviews meaningful!

Don't let exit interviews become just another tick off the list!

Exit interviews provide extremely valuable information. IF exit interviews are conducted in the correct way you could increase employee productivity dramatically.

It all comes down to making the ex-employee feel comfortable enough to be open and honest along with asking the right questions. Then, of course, comes the reporting. Assuming all these are done correctly you now have golden insight in to what is great and not great about working for your organisation.

As we say 'knowledge is power'!

http://retentionpartners.com.au/workshops.php

An employee survey can be specified & diverse!

Employee survey doesn't just have to mean 'interview a sample of your entire staff population'. It can be broken down in to many variations and aspects of the business. For example we often do studies for clients that want to know why certain areas of the business are loosing staff or why females have such a high turnover rate or why they cannot retain Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander employees.

Recently a client came to us after finding they were losing a number of female employees once they hit the 3 year mark. They had done some internal investigations with no substantial outcomes. We conducted a study and found these women simply had no role models.They couldn't see how they might manage work/life balance once they had a family or how they might actually make it to the Top Executive level because there was no one doing it.

You must find out what your staff want/don't want in order to make necessary changes.

Call Lisa or Gemma on 1300 78 83 71 for more information.

When should I conduct an exit interview?

WAIT UNTIL THEY LEAVE


















In most organisations, exit interviews are conducted sometime between resignation and the final day at work.

The preferred time to conduct an exit interview is AFTER the employee has left, ideally within 3 months.

Departed employees have more perspective and are more likely to provide a balanced response.

However, if the delay is too long post-employment, too many details will be forgotten and the circumstances that the employee reflects upon may no longer exist either.

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Exit interview & understanding the employment experience

The purpose of an exit interview is to understand the entire employment experience
















In addition to understanding the reasons behind their resignation, the interview should be used to gain feedback from an employee who has experienced an entire employment cycle with you.

These are the main questions to ask.

1.  What attracted you to the organisation originally?

2.  And which of your expectations were met here?

3.  And which expectations were not met?

4.  How would you describe the organisation to a friend who was thinking of working here?

5.  What was great about working here?

6.  What wasn’t so good about working here?

7.  What was the main reason you decided that you didn’t want to stay here any longer?

8.  What’s the main thing you would have liked your manager to do differently?

9.  Would you consider working with this organisation again?

 Each question’s results will go to amending a specific policy or practice which will improve future recruitment and retention.

Also include a tick-a-box section to capture the demographics of each interviewee. For example, you might include gender, age groups, business units, performance ratings, role level. That means you will be able to isolate the interviews of particular groups (women or sales people, for example) to find out the main themes affecting them.

From an administrative perspective, you will also want to include information such as your name and the month of resignation. There is no need to include the employee’s name because this interview is confidential and is conducted so as to get a macro sense of the policies and practices which need to change.

Call Retention Partners on
1300 73 83 71

Make your exit interview honest, representative & useful!

Honest – your employees will talk more openly to an anonymous third party. Make the process as confidential as possible.



Representative – ensure your survey is a cross-section of your sample. For example, don’t send out an electronic survey for anyone to complete – your results won’t be representative (unless you have 100% response rate and that’s a waste of time and money!)



Useful – only ask questions where you can point to the strategy or tactic that the responses will help alter. 63% of respondents agree that ‘Our culture is good/very good’? What tactic or strategy will that influence! Ask questions to fuel the changes you have to make. See the following tips for ideas.

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Don't bank on it with employee retention!

So, I was training in Bangkok earlier this year and we had attendees from Singapore, Brunei, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Thailand in the room. It was a great mix!

But a funny thing happened that showed me the differences that we sometimes don’t acknowledge exist.

We were working through the usual company policies and practices that might (inadvertently) encourage employee to resign.

For example, some organisations require an employee to inform their supervisor if they want to put in for an internal promotion. However, sometimes employees don’t want their boss to know they’re dissatisfied, and it’s easier to resign than to keep working for your boss if you don’t win that promotion.

One of the training participants representing an Islamic bank thought for a bit then he said ‘Well, I think the policy we have that our employees can’t marry each other, maybe that’s not helping recruitment and retention’.

You think?!

That policy may no doubt be right for a conservative business in a conservative country, but they’ll have to accept higher turnover and maybe a different calibre of candidate in the first place.

Have you become aware of policies or practices inside your business that (inadvertently) might make employees resign?

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Keeping track of staff turnover

So, a few years ago, we worked with a national retailer and we started reviewing their exit and entry data. We wanted to find out why people were resigning.

Was it job shock?
Was it adverse onboarding?
Was it unmet learning expectations?

One of our analyses involves looking at how employees enter the business, then we compare that to how long they stayed and how well they performed.

We need to understand which recruitment source delivers the best employees.

We found something so shocking that at first we couldn’t believe it.

We found that over 60% of the applicants who entered that business came in via a popular online job site.

And then we found that over 80% of the employees who resigned… had entered via that online job site.

An over-reliance on that source of candidates actually accelerated the pace of resignations!

Why? Because the ads were not accurate, the process focused on speed and efficiency, not effectiveness and the company missed out of recruiting people from other sources that resulted in longer-tenured and higher-performing staff.

Where do you candidates come from? Which recruitment source delivers longer-tenured and higher-performing people for you?

Call Retention Partners on 1300 73 83 71 for help with your staff turnover.

Word of mouth counts as does an employee survey

So, Gemma was at a restaurant with her husband Brent the other day.

They’d been there a few times before. It’s a bit fancy, for a special night out.

But this time, there weren’t any tablecloths. And the service was a bit sloppy. And why were other diners there in joggers and shorts? We’re talking a $200 meal here!
What’s the point of this story? Gemma’s not planning on going there again. PLUS, she told me about it and now I’m never going to go there. And I’m going to mention that to any friend who happens to say they’re planning on dinner there. (come on, this isn’t Eatability!)

There’s potentially a thousand bucks in revenue that restaurant isn’t going to see over the next couple of years.

Word of mouth matters. People believe personal stories from people they know more than they do a paid ad. In employee engagement-land, we use Net Promoter Score (NPS) for our clients in their employee survey – ‘how likely are you to recommend your organisation to a colleague thinking of working there?’

A really bad NPS indicates that your employees are giving you a bad review. And if you tell me that you have a rotten time at your job, I’m not going to apply.

The really bad news for employers with bad NPS results is that you don’t even know how many high calibre candidates decide not apply to you, just like the restaurant can’t count the revenue it isn’t making.

And you know, don’t you, which organisations in your sector you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole? Word gets around.

What do you think your employees and former employees are saying about your organisation? Are they champions or detractors?

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Nothing but the truth in an exit interview!

So, we do exit interviews, all the time.

We talk with employees who’ve decided to leave our clients.

And we hear it all. These honest conversations would sometimes break your heart.

• The man who, after a restructure, decided to resign rather than have his wife think he had been demoted.

• The young bloke who actually had the guts to put up with the bullying but couldn’t stand being told to ‘suck it up’ by his boss.

• The loooooong term employee (42 years) whose last day wasn’t a party but a handover of swipe cards and a ‘You still here?’ from the security guard.

When we’re asked to take over the exit interview and reporting process, we’re always keen to find out why – what’s the client currently doing that’s not working?

And we do laugh when we discover that when employees complete an internal exit interview, the most popular reason for resigning is…

Go on, guess!

It’s ‘Other’.

That’s right. ‘None of the above’.

Now if I’m in charge of reducing employee turnover and 56% of people leave for ‘Other’ reasons… what am I supposed to do with that??

So please, please outsource your exit interview process, to us or to anyone that’s just not you! This is a great chance to discover what policies and practices to change to attract and keep great people.

Do you think your employees tell you ‘nothing but the truth’ in your exit interviews? Would you?

If you would like access to up and coming webinars please subscribe to Retention Partners

Interview questions and answers & martial arts

So, at martial arts, our instructors really focus on self-defense techniques and on building our fitness.

But every now and then they cast a few pearls before us: little gems of wisdom that you can take or leave.

One of my favourites is that old saying ‘Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right’.

Now, that’s not really what I want to hear, 1 minute into the plank with 30 seconds to go. You really want to hear ‘Time!’.

But like so much of life, it’s in your head. I’ve talked myself out of physical exercises long before my muscles decide to pack it in.

And organisations, unfortunately, can take the same approach. ‘We can’t do anything about turnover, so we’ll just get better at recruitment. Or we’ll outsource the function and make it someone else’s problem’.

It’s so frustrating because the answer is within the organisation’s ability to influence, if they choose to! 70% of reasons employees quit is influenced by the employer. That means that 7 out of 10 resignations could have been delayed if the organisation took the time to find out what the reasons were. But if they take the mindset that they can’t reduce turnover, guess what? Turnover doesn’t reduce!

Have you tried to change the mindset? Or have you worked in businesses that shrug turnover off as all too hard to do anything about?


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Interview questions and what to ask?

So, it’s interesting when we look at some client’s exit data.

We notice that there are certain times of the year when turnover increases.

Like the hospital chain in Melbourne. Do you know when most of their nurses resign?

Winter.

Ever had winter in Melbourne?

Much better to head to Europe or Asia for a few months.

A Canberra Federal Government client tends to lose more employees whenever an election is called, due to the uncertainty of what an incoming government might do to the department.

Have you noticed any times in your business when turnover spikes? What can you do to address that event or time of the year?


Keep turnover spikes to a minimum with finding out when they might be and asking the right interview questions.

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Breaking up with me? Exit Interviews and why?

That’s what you say when you’re breaking up with someone and you don’t want to hurt their feelings.

But guess what? (Spoiler alert).

It really is you. You’re the reason they don’t want to go out with you anymore.

And that’s what happens when employees quit. ‘It’s not you, I just got a better offer’.

Well, ‘better offers’ just don’t drop from the skies. You have to look for another job, go for interviews, give referees, receive and accept an offer. And if you’re really unhappy where you are, you’re not going to stop looking until you find a better offer.

The question is, why did you go looking for a better offer?

What was it about where you were that made you want to look for an alternative?

And if you can answer that question, you’re well on the way to finding out why your employees quit and what you can do to ‘keep the love alive’ for a little longer!

What’s the best excuse you have heard from an employee who’s ‘breaking up’ with the boss?

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An exit interview with the chef!

So, ever had the restaurant experience from hell? Lousy service, poorly cooked food?

Ever had a quiet word to the restaurant about it later?

Or do you just not go back, and tell all your buddies to avoid the place?

If you're the chef or restaurant owner, that feedback can be the difference between a full house or empty seats.

How do you know what to fix if you're never told?

And sure, there are nice way and not nice ways of saying what’s irked you.

But maybe next time, ring the restaurant the next day and tell them. If they're any good, they'll listen. And if they're not, you've done your bit.

Same with being at work: can you find a way to say to your manager what you'd like more or less of? What you'd like him/her to stop doing/start doing to support you at work? Too many people leave the business because of something – often quite doable – that the manager can influence, if only they knew!

An exit interview on leaving the restaurant might be handy!

At Retention Partners we can do exit interviews to get the information you need.

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Grown-up conversations

So, let’s sit down and have a grown-up conversation.

Here’s the fact. Every single person in your organisation is going to leave.

Every. Single. One.

They’re going to resign. Or retire. Or win the Lottery and buy an island in Fiji.

There’s nothing you can do about it.

Except give them a few more reasons to stay for a little bit longer. But eventually? Ta ta!

And why not? This isn’t a marriage, there’s no solemn vows of forever-ness. This is an exchange of my skills and time for your money.

And when I don’t want that anymore, I’ll leave.

So here’s the thing. Why should that be a surprise? Why do organisations behave as though there’s some kind of unexpected betrayal? Why are there big gaps in succession planning? Why haven’t key skills been passed on?

A few tips: see our blog on the martial arts principle of ‘giving service’ for a means to embed knowledge transfer inside your business.

And do you ‘bring the exit interview forward’? Do you actively work on getting a sense of flight risk and how to delay it? What happens inside your business that recognises that we’re all going to leave?

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