How do How do you retain you retain talent?

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When it comes to employee turnover, your organization is not alone in struggling with high rates, or at least higher rates than you would like. No less than 60% percent of HR professionals indicate that they have difficulty keeping talent on board. Retention has even been described as a “problem”.1

The figures for employee turnover differ per sector. The Health-care sector maintains an “alarming level” of turnovers, surpassing other sectors by a huge margin. In fact, many Healthcare professionals are considering leaving the industry altogether, rather than seeking new roles or places of employment. The Government follows the Healthcare industry with no less than 51% turnover, and the Construction sector, with 43% turnover, cannot keep employees for long.2

But this problem is not exclusive to Healthcare or the Government industries. McKinsey’s research into Fortune 500 organizations shows that even the largest organizations struggle to keep their best people on board. 73% of the employees asked at Fortune 500 organizations were actively considering seeking a new job!3 In addition, the average length of

time employees stay at an organization is not long, about 4.4 years, in the United States that is. For Millennials this period is even shorter: 2.2 years.4

Whether it concerns Apple employees or Health care workers, one thing is clear: talented people do  not  stay  without  incentive  and  need  to  be convinced to stay.

With a high turnaround time and many vacancies to be filled, recruiters are constantly busy refilling jobs. This can be a time consuming process for HR professionals with the added consequence of change and innovation projects falling out of scope.

Constantly having to fill and refill vacancies is not a sustainable strategy for any organization. After all, there are only a limited number of talented people available in tech, marketing and many other specialties. And in addition to that, if people looking for a job hear about the high turnover rates at your organization, would they still be willing to join?

1 HR Praktijk | 2 Consultancy | 3 McKinsey | ⁴ Bureau of Labor Statistics

Staff turnover is higher than ever, how do you turn this around?

High turnovers

Determine the reason for staff turnover

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Take a deep dive into your turnovers to find the root of the problem. Ask critical questions. Which vacancies are open? If the same teams keep popping up, you can follow up internally by looking at their dynamics. Could leadership within these teams be better? If so, no problem. Because there is always an opportunity for development and learning, for example through leadership training.

Sometimes the reason is not so easy to spot. Is your staff turnover not alarmingly high, but still higher than you would like? And is this happening across the organization? Have a look at the duration of your turnovers. Are employees leaving after a short period? Then the question is whether employees have been hired for the right role, and whether they are in the right place. There might be a mismatch with colleagues, sure, but more often than not it is a mismatch of expectations, skills and function.

If more and more employees leave after a longer period, then this can mean there is an organization-wide issue. Are the organizational goals clear?

If employees are not aware of the broader organizational strategy, it can prove difficult to keep them on board. And even more difficult to motivate them. Don’t know the rules of the game? Then it is difficult to motivate oneself to participate in the game. Consider your organization’s mission and vision, can you motivate everyone and get them involved? Make sure there is plenty of communication between the top of the organization and all departments. If there is little transparency, talent will often leave quickly.

As an HR team you have already seen a lot, and you easily spot problems. Still, exit interviews with employees leaving the organization can always be enlightening. It is often the easiest way to spot which team is not performing optimally, whether the organizational goals are clear and where any lack of enthusiasm comes from. You just need to ask!5

5 Forbes

Pay attention to:

• The vacancies that are open: are they department-specific or organization-wide? Which vacancies are recurring?

• A lot of turnover in a short time? Do employees have the right skills for their position? Do they match with their job profile? Can the recruitment procedure be optimized?

• Long-term employees are leaving? Are the organizational goals clear to everyone? Are employees properly included in the growth?

• Exit interviews: by far the easiest way to spot problems!

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Shifting the focus from employee turnover to talent retention starts with an investment in your employees and their personal development. Where do they want to go? Where do they perform best? Match their skills to the position and you can bring out the best in people. Nurture and develop talents. You will definitely see that reflected in the retention figures of your organization.

Cost effectiveDid you create a good skills profile for the vacancy during the application procedure? If so, recruiting talent with skills that exactly match the job profile will be well equipped to perform their work better. This is a good foundation, and preparation for a good start. Mind, your employees staying with an organization for a long time is not the end goal, achieving some form of return on your investment in the recruitment process and in the employees professional cycle at the company is. If during the recruitment process the right match of skills and position have been considered, then your talent is in the right place, and they will stay with the organization longer. Don’t underestimate the costs of recruiting and replacing an employee.

These costs can run from 90% to 200% of the annual salary!6 In addition to a good skills match, have you considered your organization’s reputation? If you are known as an organization that invests in its employees and therefore in the future, people will come to you on their own. The ideal solution! Recruiters no longer have to spend hours on LinkedIn searching for talent. Because they will now flock towards you.

ProductivityIf you support professionals in the development of skills, you will of course see this reflected in your organizational growth. Employees will always work more productively when given the right skills to do so. By starting early in the onboarding process with both a good skills match and the right support, productivity will increase and your organization will see a return on investment quickly. You will reach a place where your organization achieves ROI on an employee. If it takes longer to train new talent, or if training employees is not given priority, the ROI curve will flatten.

Bron: Bersin door Deloitte. (Oct 2014)7

Why should you nurture your employees?

6 BambooHR | 7 Bersin door Deloitte

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Healthy organizational cultureThe value of giving employees the space to develop personally and professionally is certainly not to be underestimated. It is a must, or even hygiene factor, as 46% of young professionals assume that organizations invest in their employees.8 If you are not doing this, it can discourage a lot of potential talent from applying, and certainly from staying longer and contributing to organizational success. It is worth considering that this will translate to the reputation of your organization as well.

Naturally, you don’t want your organizational reputation to turn into a bad one, because of a lack of investment in your employees. As an organization you naturally want to be known as a great employer.

You want your organization to be described by employees as “good to its employees”. You especially want to create an organization that attracts new talent because of its good reputation, and is interesting enough for current talent to stay.

By creating an attentive development process for employees, you will see an upward trend in happy workers, a pleasant working atmosphere and greater performances. You will quickly become ahead of organizations that do not invest in development; no less than 33% of HR teams. These organizations disregard the training and retraining of existing employees. Instead, they keep recruiting new employees and therefore incur much more costs.

Why talent retention is so important:

•  Nurturing your employees will save time and costs and instead you will attract talent more quickly with a good reputation.

•  If you invest in development processes, productivity will increase, to the benefit of your ROI.

•  If an organization falls short in this area, they will continue to incur high recruitment costs and waste time.

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Research into the importance of personal development is clear: 1 in 6 Dutch employees think that in 20 years’ time they will no longer have the relevant skills they need to perform their work properly.9

Many employees have witnessed the major effect that automation of processes has had on their work. 42% think they will no longer be relevant to the labor market in 20 years. Even more remarkable is that more than half, 54%, of the employees are not supported by their employer in the development of their current or in developing new skills.

HR professionals themselves regard the aging of employees skills with an even higher urgency. 1 in 3 organizations expect that employees will no longer have the right skills in just 10 years to do their work properly. Large organizations in particular consider it more likely that employees will not be able to keep up with their current skill set. At companies with more than 1000 employees, a skills shortage is expected in 40% of the employees. In smaller organizations, with fewer than 25 employees, this is less than 25%.

Yet the same survey showed that 36% of organizations currently do not have a strategy for training their current employees. Many fall back on recruiting new employees, rather than developing current ones.

I think that (part of) my current skills and abilities in 20 years time will no longer be

relevant to the performance of my job

9 Lepaya

42%

58%

Agree DisagreeN=1.146

How do you retain employees?

How are your employees doing?

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32% of organizations prefer to recruit new employees instead of training current employees. This is anything but a sustainable strategy. This approach does not close the skills gap and does not benefit the retention of employees! If employees do not have the right skills to do their job, they will often leave. Organizational growth will steadily decline and in ten or twenty years’ time it will become clear: the organization was not future-proof!

By not actively investing in employee development, organizations are playing with their own future-proofness. Therefore, it is vital to train employees with the right skills. Skills they need now, in ten and twenty years time, so that your organization can continue to grow.

Start at the beginning. There are a number of positions that must be filled by the right people. On average, there are about 13 vacancies per recruiter. You naturally want to fill these positions as well as retain them.10

After matching the right person, skills and position, the introduction begins. A proven way to improve retention. 69% of employees stay with an organization for three years or more when the onboarding has been successful. A structured onboarding process including support, gives employees guidance and shows a higher ROI for the organization.

My organization does not have a clear strategy for training and

retraining employees

N=1.057

36%

6%6%

52%

Agree Disagree I do not know No furthertraining/learning budget

10 HR Praktijk

How to retain employees: start with onboarding

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Glassdoor estimates that a strong onboarding process can increase retention by up to 82% and productivity by 70%.11

Employees also feel more involved in the organization after a successful onboarding. Employee engagement contributes to productivity, customer success and much more! 54% of companies with a structured onboarding program see much higher results in engagement. With positive impressions from the start and a clear management of expectations, you bridge the gap between employee, organization and role.

Has the onboarding process been successful in setting new talent off with a good start? If so, you will certainly achieve better organizational results. 77% of employees who successfully reach their first goal within a few months have had a successful onboarding experience.

Talent retention starts on day 1. This is the first time you come face to face with your new employee! Therefore, pay a lot of attention to the onboarding process. The very first experience can be a deal breaker and determine whether or not new employees will stay with the organization for long. 5% of employees even drop out after one day and the chance that 1 in 4 of your employees will leave after ninety days is also considerable.12

When onboarding take the following into account:

• Structure: start with the paperwork before the first day

• Managing expectations: is there a good description of the daily tasks in the vacancy? Is the new employee in line with their manager? Does the new employee know what the organizational goals are and how they can achieve personal success?

• Do not stop onboarding with paperwork and processes: keep training employees and support them well after the onboarding!

11 BambooHR | 12 Inc.

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If you show that you invest in talent, your employees are inclined to stay from day 1.

To ensure you have the right person in the right place, you should pay a lot of attention to the recruitment process and onboarding (see onboarding). Sustainable investment does not stop with onboarding. Sustainable investment is one that continues throughout the career of your employees.

Firstly, you want to get the highest possible return on your new hires. To see productivity increase, it is vital you keep training and supporting them (See graph ‘Economic value of new employees’). If you do not, then, as shown by the figures, the Return on Investment on employees will falter because their development will cease. This will lead to lower productivity and make employees less likely to achieve their goals.

Secondly, you want to future-proof your organization. Employees themselves acknowledge a skills shortage. 1 in 6 see their skills become less relevant with age. Within twenty years they even think they no longer have the skills to do their job properly. HR sees that too. As mentioned earlier, 1 in 3 organizations expects that employees will no longer have the right skills in 10 years to do their work properly.

In addition, 46% of employees expect to receive support from their employer in developing their skills.

How to retain talent: invest and keep nurturing

My employer helps me to gain insight into what skills I need to develop in order to

remain relevant in the labor market in future.

46%

54%

Agree Disagree

N=1.146

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So how do you go about this? How can you achieve the biggest impact?Identify points for development among employees. Where are the pitfalls and which skills are they missing? Ask your employees about this. For example, send weekly or monthly short surveys. This way you stay informed and can quickly identify any issues.

Make sure to keep a good overview and focus on the impact. When evaluating the results, feel free to prioritize particular skills. Some skills make more impact, both personally and professionally, than others.

Which skills make the most impact?Do you know where the skills gaps of your employees lie? Have the core skills that are most needed at specific key moments in their career been identified? Then offer your employees training that suits them and can be done in their flow of work. Training, actively applying the learnings and integrating skills in the workplace has proven to be the most impactful way to learn. This way, information is immediately retained and employees can apply their new skills right away.

For maximum impact of learning and minimal time spent on digesting information, a qualified L&D partner such as Lepaya, offers your employees the right training courses at the right time and in the right place. Before and after blended learning sessions, your employees complete engaging bite-sized learning exercises via an app. Trainers will explain the frameworks and theory through structured modules. They can also send reminders and give employees the opportunity to set personal goals via the app.

How do you measure the impact of development? An L&D partner, such as Lepaya, can support you. Training should be fun to participate in (of course), but equally important, it should be measurable.

For the HR department, this means that you allow employees to work on their skills in a structured manner. You set goals and, together with your L&D partner, measure the data behind the training, attendance figures, feedback and more. Afterwards, you can evaluate developments and immediately notice the impact of the training.

Of course make sure to choose your partner wisely, not all offer the same impact!13

13 The learning method as described above is unique to Lepaya. Lepaya empowers your employees by offering training, blended and via the Lepaya app, at the right time and in the right

place. Creating the most impact professionally as well as personally.

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Have you built dream teams with the most talented employees? Then you want these to be managed in the right way. A very cliché example: a football team without a manager is not called a team, they are just eleven people on a field.

On a daily basis, employees must be managed both professionally and personally. Consider building a strong team that is balanced and where everyone is in the right role! Consider training your leaders with vital skills such as creating a feedback culture and

showing conscious leadership. These subject-specific and strategic power skills are extremely important and make all the difference. Only with these skills can the organization get the best out of each team. Not just when talent comes in, but everyday!

Provide your leaders with the right tools by offering them the:

We introduced the Lepaya training program with the aim of keeping our best people happy at Bynder for longer. After 1 year, turnover had halved compared to the years before.”

Why do organizations choose Lepaya? Read about our client’s experience in the When developing your

employees, keep in mind:

• How valuable it is to check in: how are my employees?

• Level gauge: focus on the skills! Check this during onboarding, and daily when performing their work.

• Offer training that works for them: the right training, at the right time makes the most impact.

• Personal and professional development proves most effective when it fits the person and is perceived as convenient.

R U B E N V E R M A A K, H E A D O F L & D B I J B Y N D E R

Manage talent: give your leaders the right tools

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When determining the cause of your employee turnover, you focus on a number of things. In the short term you look at how your teams and departments function; their suitability and productivity are in focus. When you have taken the time to onboard an employee, you do not want this talent to leave quickly and for your organization to incur unnecessary costs.

Monitor your ROI,  increase productivity and strive for  a  healthy  organizational  culture!  Include  your employees  in  your  organizational  goals,  invest  in them and ensure that they have room to show their best selves and make the most out of their skill set. Happy employees lead to a successful organization.

How do you reduce the chance that your best people will leave?

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Pay attention to:

Why talent retention is so important:

When onboarding take the following into account:

When developing your employees, keep in mind:

• The vacancies that are open: are they department-specific or organization-wide? Which vacancies are recurring?

• A lot of turnover in a short time? Do employees have the right skills for their position? Do they match with their job profile? Can the recruitment procedure be optimized?

• Long-term employees are leaving? Are the organizational goals clear to everyone? Are employees properly included in the growth?

• Exit interviews: by far the easiest way to spot problems!

• Nurturing your employees will save time and costs and instead you will attract talent more quickly with a good reputation.

• If you invest in development processes, productivity will increase, to the benefit of your ROI.

• If an organization falls short in this area, they will continue to incur high recruitment costs and waste time.

• Structure: start with the paperwork before the first day• Managing expectations: is there a good description of the daily tasks in

the vacancy? Is the new employee in line with their manager? Does the new employee know what the organizational goals are and how they can achieve personal success?

• Do not stop onboarding with paperwork and processes: keep training employees and support them well after the onboarding!

• How valuable it is to check in: how are my employees?• Level gauge: focus on the skills! Check this during onboarding, and

daily when performing their work.• Offer training that works for them: the right training, at the right time

creates the most impact.• Personal and professional development proves most effective when it

is convenient.

Takeaways

A new way of learning makes a difference. We train the right skill, at the right time in the right way. Because we like to make an impact. What will be the best talent strategy for your organization? We’d like to talk it over!

Build your workforce with Power Skills.

www.lepaya.com | info@lepaya.com

Start investing in your talent today!