"Commentary"-The Key To Keeping Key Employees
Thursday, March 06, 2008SUSIE GHARIB: In tonight's commentary, the importance of retaining key employees. Here's Alfred Edmond, jr., senior vice president and editor in chief of "Black Enterprise."
ALFRED EDMOND JR., SR. VP, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, BLACK ENTERPRISE: It is easy for many employers to dismiss their inability to retain valuable employees as inevitable, particularly in an environment of slow economic growth and stagnant wages. Yet high turnover is, in fact, avoidable. Employees, especially your stars, can be retained and it may not even require throwing additional compensation their way. If you want to keep talent from looking for greener pastures, focus on their managers. Surveys of workers show that immediate supervisors, more than nearly every other reason, as why people stay and thrive in an organization or become disenchanted and leave.
Identify, empower and reward those managers who make their direct reports feel valued and fully engaged in the mission of the company, or they may think about leaving themselves. And if you can't change the behaviors of those who seem to be constantly driving away talent, because they are perceived by workers as abusive, disengaged, overly critical, biased, ethically challenged, etcetera, get rid of them. All it takes is one bad supervisor to lose dozens of good employees. The price of replacing that person pales against the cost of losing top talent, along with their training, contacts and trade secrets, the morale of the workers they leave behind your company's reputation, making it even more difficult and costly to bring in new talent to replace them. I'm Alfred Edmond, Jr.
