Retention Strategies To “Never Lose An Employee Again”
Episode 4.19: Hiring is tough – in the current climate, that’s a given. And while there are strategies upon strategies on how to win this “war for talent”, not nearly enough is said on the absolute best way to win that war: which is simply to avoid job vacancies in the first place. Every employee you retain is a new hire you won’t have to find – not to mention onboard, train and socially integrate into your team. Joining us today to help us better understand this challenge is Joey Coleman, the Founder and Chief Experience Composer for Design Symphony, perhaps best known for his Wall Street Journal Bestseller Never Lose a Customer Again. His latest book, Never Lose An Employee Again: The Simple Path to Remarkable Retention will be released later this summer. Here, he explains: The importance of retention, with regard to customers and employees; How loyalty interacts with retention - and what organizations commonly get wrong about loyalty; The eight phases of the journey to improve employee retention; and What you can do right now to improve employee retention in your own workplace! If you prefer to read along while you listen, we've done all the hard work for you! We listened back to this episode and took notes below, and access is free! Why Study Customer and Employee Retention? Retention is a prominent theme in Mr. Coleman’s writing because of a human being’s biological imperative of being predisposed towards “the chase, not the catch and retain.” Retention is also important to Mr. Coleman because he believes businesses focus too much on marketing and sales. His first book, Never Lose A Customer Again, provides a framework and methodology for enhancing customer retention for companies. Its cover uses the symbolism of a balloon, to illustrate a lack of retention in an organization. If customers aren’t retained, they usually don’t storm in and fire the business aggressively. It’s instead like a balloon – a slow, quiet drift away. The same goes for employees, despite often having more notice. Employers can still be surprised or caught off-guard by an employee giving two weeks with (seemingly) no cues or signs. Examining retention allows individuals to think strategically, systematically, and intentionally about keeping customers and employees. UNLOCK THE FULL EPISODE COMPANION GUIDE Get all the notes, links, tips, tricks and most important content from this episode - for free! Show me! By signing up you agree to our terms How Loyalty Interacts With Employee Retention Loyalty and retention work hand in hand. Loyalty is the aspirational goal of retention. The organization will likely retain employees who feel loyal to the organization. What organizations get wrong about loyalty is that there is an expectation that it should be given instantly. There is no other situation or environment where individuals expect this to be the case. Mr. Coleman gives an example of a bad first date due to assumptions about loyalty. “We're sitting at the first date, and the waiter or waitress comes over to take our order. And before they've even taken our order, we're asking the other person, ‘so when do I get to meet your parents? I'm thinking this is going really well.’ We wouldn't do that in our dating lives. And yet, when we bring on a new customer, or we bring on a new employee, our perspective is, ‘well, now they're in, right? They're going to stay unless something goes wrong.’” Understanding Never Lose An Employee Again