Deer Oaks EAP Services
Oct. 2008
Supervisor/HR Supplement Newsletter
Ways to Retain Your Great Employees
Why Retention? Four Tips for Employee Retention
Key employee retention is critical to the long term health and success of your business. Managers readily agree that retaining
your best employees ensures customer satisfaction, product sales, satisfied coworkers and reporting staff, effective succession
planning and deeply imbedded organizational knowledge and learning. If managers can cite these facts so well, why do they
behave in ways that so frequently encourage great employees to quit their jobs?
Employee retention matters. Organizational issues such as training time and investment; lost knowledge; mourning, insecure
coworkers and a costly candidate search aside, failing to retain a key employee is costly. Various estimates suggest that losing a
middle manager costs an organization up to 100 percent of his salary. The loss of a senior executive is even more costly. I have
seen estimates of double the annual salary and more.
Tips for Meeting Employee retention is critically important for a second societal reason, too. Over the next few years
while Baby Boomers (age 40 to 58) retire, the upcoming Generation X population numbers 44 million
Management
people (ages 25-34), compared to 76 million Baby Boomers available for work. Simply stated: there
are a lot fewer people available to work.
Employee retention is one of the primary measures of the health of your organization. If you are
losing critical staff members, you can safely bet that other people in their departments are looking as
well. Exit interviews with departing employees provide valuable information you can use to retain
remaining staff. Heed their results. You’ll never have a more significant source of data about the
health of your organization.
Here are a few ways to retain a great employee:
Š Management thinkers from Ferdinand Fournies to Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman agree
that a satisfied employee knows clearly what is expected from him every day at work. Changing
expectations keep people on edge and create unhealthy stress. They rob the employee of internal
1. Make Sure You Need a Meeting
security and make the employee feel unsuccessful. I’m not advocating unchanging jobs just the need
2. Plan the Meeting
3. Ensure Appropriate Participation for a specific framework within which people clearly know what is expected from them.
at the Meeting
4. Distribute and Review Pre-work Š The quality of the supervision an employee receives is critical to employee retention. People leave
Prior to the Meeting
managers and supervisors more often than they leave companies or jobs. It is not enough that the
supervisor is well-liked or a nice person, starting with clear expectations of the employee, the supervisor has a critical role to play in retention. Anything the supervisor does to make an employee feel unvalued will contribute to turnover.
Š The ability of the employee to speak his or her mind freely within the organization is another key factor in employee retention. Does
your organization solicit ideas and provide an environment in which people are comfortable providing feedback? If so, employees offer
ideas, feel free to criticize and commit to continuous improvement. If not, they bite their tongues or find themselves constantly "in
trouble" - until they leave.
Talent and skill utilization is another environmental factor your key employees seek in your workplace. A motivated employee wants to
contribute to work areas outside of his specific job description.How many people could contribute far more than they currently do? You
just need to know their skills, talent and experience, and take the time to tap into it.
Full Article At :
http://humanresources.about.com/od/meetingmanagement/a/meetings_work.htm
For more tips on retaining your great employees, visit:
http://humanresources.about.com/od/retention/a/more_retention.htm
1-866-EAP-2400
www.deeroaks.com
Page 1 of 2
Oct. 2008
How to Deal With a Negative Coworker: Negativity Matters
Some people exude negativity. They don’t like their jobs or they don’t like their company. Their bosses are always jerks and they are
always treated unfairly. The company is always going down the tube and customers are worthless. You know these negative Neds
and Nellies – every organization has some – and you can best address their impact on you via avoidance. Top 10 Ways to Be
On the other hand, sometimes normally positive people are negative. Some of the time, too, their
Happy at Work
reasons for negativity are legitimate. You will take a completely different tack with these occasionally 1. Choose to Be Happy
negative people. We’ll deal with both of these varieties of negativity from people.
2. Do Something You Love
Every Single Day
3. Take Charge of Your Own
Professional and Personal
Development
4.Take Responsibility for
Knowing What Is Happening
at Work
5. Ask for Feedback
Frequently
6. Make Only Commitments
You Can Keep
7. Avoid Negativity
8. Practice Professional Courage
9. Make Friends
10.If All Else Fails,Job Searching
Will Make You Smile
Tips for Dealing With Occasional Negativity
1.) Listen to the employee or coworker’s complaints until you are certain that they feel heard out and
listened to. Sometimes people repeat negative sentiments over and over because they don’t feel like
you have really listened to them. Ask questions. Clarify their statements. Make sure you have actively
listened.
2.) Decide if you believe the employee or coworker has legitimate reasons for their negativity. If you
decide affirmatively, ask if they’d like your help to solve the problem. If they ask for help, provide advice
or ideas for how the coworker can address the reason for their negativity.
3.) Sometimes, the coworker just wants to complain to a friendly, listening ear; they don’t want your
advice or assistance to address the situation. Listen, but set limits so the coworker does not overstay
or over-talk his or her welcome. Long term complaining saps your energy and positive outlook. Don’t
allow that to happen. Walk away. Tell the coworker you’d prefer to move on to more positive subjects.
http://humanresources.about.com/od/success/tp/happy_work.htm
4.) If you listen to the coworker’s negativity, and decide the concerns are not legitimate, practice Source:
personal courage and tell them what you think. Tell the coworker you care about their concern and about their happiness at
work, but you disagree with their assessment of the situation.
Tips for Dealing With Negative Coworkers
Deal with genuinely negative people by spending as little time with them as possible. Just as you set limits with the coworkers
whose negativity you believe is baseless or unwarranted, you need to set limits with genuinely negative people.
Causes of their long term negativity are not your concern. Every negative person has a story. Don’t impact your positive outlook
by listening to the stories, or reviewing the history and the background about the grievances purported to cause the negativity.
You reinforce the negativity; negativity is a choice. Negativity mongers need a new job, a new company, a new career, a new
outlook, or counseling. They don’t need you. Deal with negative coworkers in these ways.
3 Avoid spending time with a negative coworker.
3 If you are forced, through your role in the company, to work with a negative person, set limits. Do not allow yourself to
be drawn into negative discussions. Tell the negative coworker, you prefer to think about your job positively. Avoid
providing a sympathetic audience for the negativity.
3 Suggest the negative person seek assistance from human resources or their supervisor.
3 If all else fails, talk to your own supervisor or human resources staff about the challenges you are experiencing in
dealing with the negative person. Your supervisor may have ideas, may be willing to address the negativity, and may
address the issue with the negative person’s supervisor.
For the full article on dealing with negativity, visit:
http://humanresources.about.com/od/conflictresolution/a/negative_worker.htm
Deer Oaks EAP Services, your Employee Assistance Program, is always available for management
consultations and training on a variety of topics including effective leadership, communication,
and dealing with difficult people. If you have employee related questions or you are interested in
scheduling a seminar for you or your employees, please call 1-866-327-2400.
1-866-EAP-2400
www.deeroaks.com
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