In the past couple of blog posts, I have talked about the importance of an employee understanding their significance to the organization and the process as a way to engage and retain them long term. This is undoubtedly true, but something else has been identified as an even more power force in getting your employees to stay long term: Connection.
The Gallup Corporation is well known for its surveys of large organizations (and society in general) to find common themes and truths that run through any group of people. Sometimes, their results are used to better advertise and sell products, but this time, their nationwide survey of employees of (mostly) large organizations focuses on retention. Their goal was to figure out why people STAY in an organization… and the results may surprise you.
If you were to guess what the number one retention reason people choose to remain at an organization, what would you guess? Pay? Nope. Benefits? Nope. Advancement opportunities? Not even close. By far, the number one reason they uncovered about why people stay at a company was this question:
“Do you have a BEST FRIEND at work?”
Now, I’d like you to think about your own work journey as you consider this…. was this true for you? When times got tough, or the stress was too great, or the boss was breathing down your neck, what made you decide to fight through the pain and push through? It was likely because your friends at work were counting on you to be there for them. You could have found a different job with similar pay and opportunities if you had chosen to, but you weren’t willing to leave your friends hanging.
So with this in mind, what is the one easy thing to do to make sure that your newest employees develop meaningful relationships at work early on? With my client companies, we implement a systematic mentor program that engages every new employee who walks in the door from the first day. This mentorship is focused on one thing and one thing only: connecting the new employee to their new coworkers.
You just hired a person who just left everyone they knew at work behind. They are standing in a room of complete strangers on their first day, and connection to others will be the number one reason that they stay. How can you accomplish that? Glad you asked… more to come…
If you are looking for insight or specific action steps to grow a process within your organization to Win the War for Talent, please reach out. It’s my passion to help companies solve their talent issues, whether that is finding the right talent or retaining and developing that talent. With the right processes in place, your organization can grow and thrive even more!
