A New Way of Looking at Employee Retention

It’s time for leaders to wake up and smell the coffee…..employees are no longer guaranteed to stay with an employer for long periods of time.

The evolution of the workplace is happening so quickly- whereas in the ’80’s and ’90’s you could hire someone and expect him or her to stay with the company for upwards of ten years or more today that is just not true.

With shifting demographics and particularly Gen X and Gen Y there is a shift towards multi sector experience versus staying with one employer for an entire career. Harvard Business Review in October 2013 stated that having multiple employers on a resume was now a good thing- it showed that the employee had multi-sector experience and brought more value to future employers.

In the past having many different employers listed on a resume was viewed as ‘unstable’ or ‘disloyal’ and some leaders still hold this opinion.

It’s time for leaders to view employee retention through a new lens, a reality lens of today’s employee attitudes, options and choices.

Consider this, the average Gen Y will change jobs/careers up to twenty times in his or her lifetime and a the average Gen X will change jobs/careers five to seven times in his or her lifetime. This contrasts with a Baby Boomer who will change jobs/careers one to three times a year or a Traditionalist who had one career/job and then retired at sixty.

So why are leaders and business owners still approaching employee retention from an attitude of expectation that employees today will stay with them for a long period of time?

It’s actually a hope and a wish and a prayer- many leaders hope to find a high performing employee and once hired hope and pray that the employee will commit and stay for five years or more. The reality is that for a Gen Y working for one employer for two years is a long time and research has shown that the average Gen Y stays for a maximum of three years and that’s if and its a big IF they like the leader and the work environment.

So consider this- a new way of looking at employee retention:

– The evolving workplace is requiring leaders to enhance his or her ability to manage an ‘ever changing’ and ‘revolving’ workforce

– Leading a ‘revolving’ workforce requires a brand new set of leadership skills- the ability to bring new employees up to speed quickly AND to have more than one employee set up for quick succession

– Leaders need to learn how to manage a dynamic high performing team of people and willingly groom, mentor and help grow employees to success even if that means they move on to new opportunities

– If the average worker is going to be changing jobs more frequently then it means that EVERY industry is experiencing this challenge and the only edge is to enhance leadership skills and focus on employee engagement (keep them happy while you have them)

– The ‘revolving’ workplace requires creative and innovation solutions – strategic partnerships with aligned industries, employee sharing among synergistic companies and talent pooling of high potential employees

Looking at employee retention in a new way helps you as a leader- you will no longer get frustrated with the reality of a ‘revolving door’ workforce and instead you will accept the changing employee reality and focus more on creative and innovation solutions to a constantly changing employee group.