How to Hire and Retain Great Employees

We’ve all heard the term “a butt for every seat” and it has never been truer than when applied to business. With employment rates climbing and jobs becoming more plentiful, the question is “How can I be sure it’s the right butt, and if it is, how do I keep it in the seat I provide?”

Right Butt/Right Seat

Finding the right person for the job is half the battle. There’s no doubt that certain jobs are best suited to certain personalities. According to Susan M. Heathfield, Human Resources Expert, you should “Select the right people in the first place through behavior-based testing and competency screening. The right person, in the right seat, on the right bus is the starting point.”¹

We agree. Very few HR departments are without the tools necessary to evaluate a prospective employee’s fit for the job they have open.

While all personality types can succeed in every occupation, it is also true that certain personality types are simply a better fit in many cases. Using a good personality evaluation tool—especially one you are well versed in, will go a long way in making the interview and hiring process successful.

Keeping Butts in Seats

Once you have hired a great employee, how do you keep them? As any HR professional knows, losing a key employee isn’t only devastating to the org chart, but tough on the bottom line. Replacing an employee—especially a key employee—can cost up to 150% of that employee’s annual salary just in hiring and training costs alone.²

Similar to using tools for hiring, it’s important to implement tools that will ensure keeping your brightest talent. This is where an effective employee retention plan comes into play.

A successful employee retention plan is not strictly about employee perks. Maintaining a stable workforce by focusing on why employees leave, reducing employee turnover through broader communication, management coaching, and strong workplace policies also make good business sense, and can result in significant cost savings to employers.

There is no shortage of studies done trying to pinpoint why people leave their job. While it is important to offer competitive compensation packages, money is not always the reason employees jump ship. Other issues are that they don’t like their boss or coworkers, they feel they are in the wrong position, they lack of empowerment or there was too little communication and feedback.

Based on study responses, a sound employee retention plan will offer employees:

• Interpersonal skills training
  Learning why your co-workers behave the way they do will help to develop healthy relationships based on mutual understanding of each others needs and wants. More importantly, managers will come to realize that employees differ widely depending on their personality and should not all be treated in the same manner.
• Empowerment
  Empowering employees is the key to your company’s success, and in more ways than one. Empowering your employees will keep them motivated and focused. If you have a great employee you’d like to keep, empower him. Test his moxie. If you have an employee who is floundering, do the same. You might, at best, find a diamond in the rough, or at worse, find he isn’t a good fit.
• Feedback
  Every employee needs feedback, positive and negative. Too often, managers shy away from this potentially unpleasant task. Learning to give constructive feedback is an essential skill that should be a requirement for anyone in a managerial position. The goal of feedback is to improve employee performance, and in-turn, company performance.
• Coaching/Mentoring
  The end goal of coaching/mentoring is to fulfill the needs and wants of your employee while achieving organizational goals. A win/win. You can accomplish this by helping each individual minimize his personal limitations while he harnesses his strengths to improve his own ability.

Conclusion

Learning how to hire, and keep great employees is a major key to any company’s success. Building employee moral through training, communication, and trust will go a long way in making sure the right butt stays in the seat you’ve provided.

To learn more about how Color Code helps companies in these matters, download our free ebook entitled “Employee Solutions” by clicking on the ad  to the right. CC

Download our complimentary ebook “Employee Solutions”.

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Teresa Glenn has been working with the Color Code since 2006, where her main focus is product development. She has been in the publishing and product development field for over 20 years. Teresa is a core Red with a strong Yellow secondary.

¹http://humanresources.about.com/cs/retention/a/turnover_2.htm

² http://www.hri-online.com/hr-the-costs-of-employee-turnover