Page 65 - Retaining Top Employees

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Envisioning Your Retention Strategy 53

poor reputation in the marketplace, unattractive location,
uncompetitive salaries. It’s critical for you to uncover the rea-
sons and deal with them expeditiously.
The simplest way to do this is to conduct a “Why didn’t you
join us?” interview. Find out why candidates declined your job
offer.
As before, to get the best information, “Why didn’t you join
us?” interviews should be conducted by someone not directly
connected to your organization and with an assurance of confi-
dentiality. It’s possible, of course, for you or someone else in the
organization to conduct the interview, such as through a brief
telephone survey by the HR staff, but the quality of the informa-
tion received will be considerably lower.
What to Ask in the Interviews
Designing a good interview structure that will yield high-quality
information for retention planning is a circular process:
• You want to ask employees, potential employees, or for-
mer employees relevant questions about what really
matters to them, but
• You don’t know what really matters to them until we’ve
completed the interview.

Don’t Let the Recruiters Do It
Whoever conducts the “Why didn’t you join us?” inter-
views,it should definitely not be the company recruiters.
It’s almost impossible for a recruiter,whether internal or external,to
be detached enough to conduct such an interview objectively.
Recruiters spend all their time “selling” the organization to potential
employees; it’s almost impossible to switch off the sales pitch and ask
objectively about why a prospect has chosen not to join the organiza-
tion.
Also,sometimes the very reason prospects do not accept your job
offers may be the way in which the recruiter is doing his or her job. In
that case,it can be very hard for the former prospects to give honest
feedback—and hard for the recruiter to convey that information to
others in the organization.