It’s frightening … the implications of losing your good people?

“Nobody cares about me here, I’m just a number!”

“I don’t feel valued and nobody says thank you for what I do!”

“I’ve never had a 1:1 or a review with my Manager since I started here!”

“Training … what training? I’ve never had any development for me in my role!”

Scary quotes aren’t they? Don’t they make you want to scream in horror?

Shock horror…This is what we hear every week from some people that we come across in our work at Pro-Development through our Employee Engagement work. Yet, how many of you are reading this and thinking your team would never say this. Are you sure? Are you valuing your people and letting them know that they matter? Do you really care or are you just paying lip service? After all, without them, we wouldn’t have a business, team or be able to deliver for our customers and clients.

“We just can’t get good people”

“We’re losing good people and we don’t know why”

“Our industry is renowned for high turnover of people, it’s just how it is!”

This is what we hear from business owners, leaders and managers and it’s the last one that is the biggest worry. Why? Because it doesn’t have to be like that. If you trick or treat people in the right way, with respect and value what they bring and help them to be the very best they can be, they will not get on their broomsticks and want to leave your business and you will attract the right kind of people.

When you lose talent, it is spookily scary and impacts in so many ways:

• There is a sadness that comes from losing the day to day contact with someone who often has become a friend.

• People are often unsettled by the change and start to query their own career and whether its time for them to move on too.

• Then of course there is the increased workload and frustration that can bring.

• Loss of knowledge is a massive risk and can slow down what was a slick and efficient process.

• Someone in the business needs to find time to recruit and finding the right person is not easy – ask any recruiter!

• Once the person has been selected, they require a full induction, not just a tick list of things to show someone in the first week. We mean a 6-month induction programme to support people in their new role.

• Oh and of course, someone in the business will need to design and manage the induction process and the list goes on!

• The true cost of losing an employee has been estimated by the Hayes Group to cost between 12 – 18 months of persons salary.

So, if we’ve not frightened you off yet, here are some questions that we have put into the bubbling cauldron for you…

• Can you afford to lose good people?

• Do you know if one of your best people is considering leaving?

• Are you doing everything to ensure that people want to stay?

• Do you know what is motivating and engaging your teams to ensure they are giving their best?

These are difficult questions but focussing on employee engagement will help you to answer them. Gaining insight into employee engagement in your business means you are well informed about employees views and feelings and this enables you to focus your energy (and resources) on doing the right things, and those ‘right things’ will probably make the difference and be enough to retain your talent.

If we’ve not terrified you too much, but you are horrified to think this might be happening in your business, get in touch with us on info@1245881.eu11.myftpupload.com or call us on 01904 628 838 or if you want to find out more, join us for our next workshop on the 20th November.

If you would like to find out more, founder of Pro-Development (UK) Limited, Michelle Mook is speaking at the Spa Life UK 2019 conference in Coventry on 12th November and sharing her ideas and challenging you to consider how you can create an engaged workforce who are your best advocates, deliver for you and help make your business a great place to work.