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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Psst! Secret shopper!

So have you heard about the secret shopper idea? And wouldn’t you love to be one – paid to shop!

I’d love to be able to give secret shopper advice to some retailers. A friend of mine, Nick, has his favourite shopping complaint: entering into entire transactions in a shop and never once receiving eye contact from the sales assistant. My particular pet hate is having a sales assistant hover over my every move, offering unwanted advice/suggestions/sizes/colours. Please! Some peace!

I guess retailers want to figure out what’s pleasing and what’s alienating customers. Great idea!

Now, why don’t we do the same with candidates? We’re ‘selling’ them a job, right? What influences their decisions to ‘buy’ or walk out of the ‘shop’?

Here are a couple of classic examples where the employer has completely turned the potential candidate off – and that’s BEFORE they even learned about the job!

One very well-regarded organisation in the financial sector struggles to attract women candidates. Why? Its corporate livery is seen as masculine: black, defined, emphatic. Women aren’t encouraged to apply because it’s seen as a ‘man’s employer’.

Another household name in the professional services sector had no trouble attracting women as candidates but they were knocking back their offers of employment. Why? Because during the entire recruitment process (interview, panel, drinks with potential team, partners’ cocktail function) the women candidates never laid eyes on a senior woman. The impression was ‘I’ll never prosper here, because no one who looks like me has’.

And in a shocking example of shabby treatment, one of the largest employers in Australia makes some candidates wait in what can only be described as a glass-walled holding pen, where the candidate faces the full range of EAP brochures (‘Feeling Suicidal?’) and a vase of dusty plastic flowers whilst being peered at by all passers-by.

Maybe it’s time we started helping our clients understand what their real recruitment experience is like. Oh wait, that’s right, we do!

Seriously, have you stepped through your own recruitment process? Have you been able to figure out why that great candidate said ‘No thanks’? Have you twigged to something that you had to fix so that great candidates would stay in your recruitment process?