September 8, 2008

Staff Burnout: The 5 Deadly Sins

More than 45 percent of young nonprofit professionals surveyed recently predicted their next job would not be at a charity. The respondents cited burnout and low pay as the main reasons they would leave.

The survey found that charities are doing little to prepare younger staff to assume leadership roles, and that more than 70 percent of the more than 1,650 young workers surveyed don’t ever expect to serve as chief executive at a charity. The survey was released during the second annual National Leadership Conference of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, held in New York City.

There is no single approach that guarantees your employees will stay, but there are strategies that, if done right, will help an organization groom and retain its best employees. In the publication, “The Deadly Sins of Employee Retention,” authors Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ in Washington, D.C., and Andrea Burgio-Murphy, executive vice president, identify the five mistakes that can destroy an organization’s retention efforts, and provide tips to counter those mistakes.

Deadly Sin #1: Treating Everyone Equally.
Some staff are better than others, period. Stop calculating the organization’s turnover. What if you were to compare two similar hospitals with similar turnover rates, and with a little investigating you find that one hospital’s turnover is heaviest in roles like housekeeper and kitchen staff, while at the other, turnover is heaviest in nursing and pharmacist roles? That would make a big difference. You’d still be missing the more pertinent information about whether the hospitals were losing high or low performers.

If pharmacists are impossible to find, your average pharmacist will be a higher retention priority than your superstar financial analyst, assuming financial analysts are easier to find.

However, no matter the market, if an individual is a low performer, they’re never a retention priority.

Deadly Sin #2: One Size Fits All.
Generally, each individual in a particular job category is different. So how do you retain them? There is no one sure-fire approach that works, because every employee is motivated differently.

Averages are misleading. For example, no family actually has 2.5 kids.
This same fallacy holds true with employee retention. A survey found there are 40 factors that drive people’s willingness to stay at a job. Similarly, exit interview studies found there are innumerable reasons people leave. And in a number of cases, people just don’t know why they stay or leave. Some 91 percent of employees say money had nothing to do with their decision to leave, according to the authors.

The only retention approach that can succeed is to engage in conversation between the manager and an individual employee to diagnose what drives them.

Shoves are the issues that make people leave. Tugs are those that make people stay. You need to ask about both, because they almost always differ. Keep in mind, however, that as much as half your workforce could feel neither shoved nor tugged.

Shove question: If you felt de-motivated again, would you feel comfortable sharing that with me? Tug question: Is there anything that would improve your working experience that you think is out of my control?

Create a summary of the conversations and rate each employee’s overall risk of departure -- low, medium, high. Identify the issues that need fixing, and determine whether the cost of losing someone is greater than the cost of keeping them.

For the low and medium departure risks, you’ve got 30 days to start fixing their shoves. With a high risk, you’ve got three days. Once you’ve eliminated the critical shoves, take the same approach with the tugs.

Deadly Sin #3: Neglecting the First 90 Days.
Turnover rates during the first 90 days are higher than for any other period of employment. Leadership IQ studies found early turnover can be as low as 2 percent and as high as 50 percent.

Studies have also found that companies whose leaders focus on building bonds with employees during the first 90 days retain more employees during that initial period, and tend to retain them longer overall.

Don’t befall a common fate: your new employee bonds with other new hires from orientation, who are working for terrible managers. Your new employee’s perspective could become distorted and attempts to bond with them jeopardized.

Instead, have the new hire go to you first. Ensure they have a good image of the company, their colleagues and the leadership. Relay how valuable their job is, how excited you are to have them, and, in a positive way, summarize the work they’ll be doing.

Finally, introduce them to their “buddy,” someone who meets weekly with the new hire for the first month, and then every few weeks for the first six months. It’s often better if it’s someone other than the manager.

During the next few weeks, host a welcome party and bring by a senior executive to greet them. The first performance review should come after one month, not 90 days. In this meeting, offer praise and goodies, have them describe their experience, and clarify expectations.

Deadly Sin #4: Letting Them Leave.
A 2004 Leadership IQ poll of 217 people who quit their jobs within the previous year found 87 percent said they felt very anxious about telling their boss they planned on leaving.

Employees can feel conflicted about their decision to quit, so they don’t want it challenged because they know they could be talked out of leaving. It is critical to keep them in this “discomfort zone,” so withhold relief -- stop, look, listen, and question.

Immediately schedule a meeting with the employee, you, and someone higher up. Prepare valid arguments why the person should stay, validate their stated concerns, and address the “grass is greener” issue about the new company. Most importantly, you’ve got to do something to solve the employee’s problem.

If the employee decides to stay with you, during the meeting provide them with a formal script to use for declining the other organization’s offer -- oftentimes employees will feel comfortable making the call with you present.

Deadly Sin #5: Turning Your Back.
When people leave a company on good terms, they tend to keep that company in mind. Former employees can even become future clients.
There are very simple ways to have a “good goodbye”: throw a party, touch base, and update.

The exit interview should be conducted after the employee has formally left the position, and should be conducted by someone besides the former manager. Ask what made them leave; what they liked most, least and if they would consider returning. The data gathered should go to everyone who manages or leads people in the organization.

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This article is from NPT Weekly, a publication of The NonProfit Times.

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