Yea, I skipped Friday.  Funky Day, Funky Mood, No Snark.  Yes, it’s true.  There are days where I have no snark!

Anyways…

Rewards & Recognition at Home

My younger son had his quarterly review from high school.  Here is his junior year schedule:

• Pre-Calculus Honors
• Chemistry AP
• Statistics AP
• US History AP
• English Honors
• Spanish IV
• Academic Lab
• Piano

Yea, a pretty easy load.  Slacker.

So, because I am such an incredible slave driver, and recognize that good grades for the next two years is an investment in his future as well as my future bank account, I challenged him to do better on his report card (which truth be told, was pretty darned good).

Carrot or stick.  Threaten to take away the car and his job working at Kroger?  Make him clean out the basement?  Take away his text messaging or worse yet… his phone???  Hope that the potential loss of something valuable is enough to change his behavior or productivity?

Or, pay him.  Recognize that a small investment now can reap tremendous dividends in both quality of school (and quality of life) and reduced costs? Hope that a potential gain in something valuable is enough to change his behavior or productivity?

You betcha.

I chose the latter.

It often works the same way with employees.

A Survey From Across the Pond

A recent survey from the UK asked employees and h.r. professionals the biggest reason that employees were leaving within their first six months of hire.  Although H.R. assumed these short-tenured employees were leaving because the “job was oversold”, only 15% of the employees gave the same reason.  Boredom/uninteresting work was given by 29% of the early leavers.

Ensuring there is a good fit between the applicants job and their skills and interest is vital to workforce engagement and employee retention.

It’s the same all around the world.

And Another Study

A survey commissioned by Spherion Corporation found that benefits actually outranked compensation as the key factor in employees retention. Nearly eighty percent named benefits (including health care) as a critical retention tool, slightly ahead of compensation (cited by 75 percent).

Golden Handcuffs do work. Force employees to stay with a wage and benefit package that can’t be replaced. It works.  Really.

They won’t leave… and

They won’t be motivated to work hard for customers… and

They won’t doubt negative information they hear about you in the press… and

They won’t hang-up on headhunters when they are called at work… and

They won’t recommend your organization as a great place to work, and to buy from… and

They won’t leave.

As I tell the thousands of people I speak to annually, retention is easy.  Double your employee’s compensation and benefits and you’ll never pry them from their chair.

Retention is an Outcome of Engagement, Not the Other Way Around.