Page 60 - Retaining Top Employees

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48 Retaining Top Employees

The best way to answer the question “Why do we have a
retention problem?” is to get out of the office and ask people,
particularly the people most impacted by it. Charts, graphs, and
statistics help tell us what has happened historically regarding
turnover, but they aren’t “rich data” when it comes to figuring
out why you have a retention problem.
You can’t design an effective retention strategy, particularly
one targeting top performers, from behind a desk. An essential
part of the process is meeting people and conducting meaning-
ful interviews that will help us come to accurate conclusions.
So, who should we meet and what should we ask?
The Exit Interview: Most Used, Least Effective
Most managers are familiar with the concept of the exit inter-
view—debriefing departing or recently departed employees to
learn their reasons for leaving. This seems like a natural and
useful thing to do. After all, grappling with retention issues
starts with understanding why people are leaving, so we should
do exit interviews, right?
Well, not necessarily. It depends on the type and quality of
the information you want to receive. While exit interviews pro-
vide useful anecdotal information, if you want to establish hard,
measurable facts, you need to handle the exit interview with
care. Here’s why:
• The benefit of finding out why people leave is limited
unless you understand why they joined. It’s important to
compare what people say when they’re leaving and what
they said when they joined, to see what’s changed in
between.
• Most people leaving a job don’t want to rock the boat or
burn bridges. Sometime they might need a reference or
even return for a job. So responses in exit interviews can
be somewhat restrained.
• People who are leaving a job rationalize their decision. To
avoid feeling remorse about leaving, they think of all the
positive reasons for taking the new job. This makes the