Help! My Best People are Leaving!

Are you finding it increasingly difficult to attract top candidates to fill open positions? Is your company suffering from higher than normal attrition, particularly among those employees with institutional knowledge that you can't afford to lose? Are you concerned because of the high opportunity cost of replacing departed employees who formerly filled key positions?

You are not alone. This issue is a significant trend in today's business world as competition increases and senior executives increasingly place more focus and priority on meeting short-term profitability and revenue targets. Today's business climate can frequently be characterized as an exercise in keeping razor-sharp focus on cost-cutting, in particular. More often than not, that cost reduction effort is obtained at the expense of long-term growth potential, employee satisfaction / engagement and, hence, attrition problems. After bottoming out in 2011, attrition rates are beginning to increase again.

Source: http://www.compensationforce.com/2017/04/2016-turnover-rates-by-industry.html

While this trend can be, at least partially, be attributed to normal economic cycles, I believe there is another technology trend that is operative here. Take a close look at the feedback that your current and former employees are leaving on sites like glassdoor.com. It's likely that you're hearing sometimes idiomatic feedback from stakeholders in your organization. It may sound like "those sites only attract disgruntled employees." Don't believe it! In today's digitally-enabled world, the employees that you really want to hire (and also those whom you want to retain) are paying close attention to these sites - and they are evaluating and making decisions about your corporate culture and your brand based upon the feedback that current and former employees leave on social media channels. You're losing potential candidates before you've even made contact with them. And, you're losing your current employees, without necessarily realizing it.

It's easy to blame these trends on the presence of increasing numbers of millennials in the workforce. But the reality is, attrition rates are increasing across every demographic. Making millennials the scapegoats for a toxic corporate culture is a mistake that is being made all too frequently. Dealing with the attrition problem, on the surface, is more of a science than an art and there are clear methodologies to turn the situation around. But, to do so, you (the company's senior management) need to think outside the box and be willing to challenge the traditional HR and recruiting thought processes. And a fundamental precursor to moving down the solution path is recognition that there are problems in the organization's culture and brand recognition (and, potentially, with its leadership). It's also quite likely that there is a problem with senior management's willingness to adopt and adapt to change.

In organizations that are facing these problems, more often than not, there is a disconnect between the organization's internal functions. The driver for solving this problem needs to come from the top and the solution necessarily involves tight(er) integration of the HR, Communications, and Marketing groups. Even then, these groups need to be willing and motivated to work together. What is abundantly clear is that culture, communications, and brand can no longer exist independently - that ship has sailed. These groups need operate strategically and they must also be fully coordinated.

More on this in my next post...