Category: retention

elephant outside the room

Suppose you know your way around an Eisenhower matrix. In that case, you’ll know that when you never make it out of the urgent and important quadrant, you have no long-term strategy.


Some HR departments are close to panicking. Their employees are quitting faster than they can hire them. As a result, they have no choice but to do urgent and important tasks, day in and day out. The elephant isn’t even in the room. It didn’t get invited and it’s waiting outside.


Without looking into the future, strategically, you’ll be stuck in the urgent and important quadrant forever. Understanding employee retention, or why people are actually leaving your company isn’t killing your pain today, but it’s alleviating it for tomorrow.

test again

When somebody cuts you off in traffic after having woken up from noticeably insufficient sleep, you feel different, right? Worse than you usually would.

New candidates get sent through entire batteries of tests. Personality, aptitude, reasoning… You name it. There is probably a test for that.
When a candidate gets hired, that’s where the tests stop. Why? People change, along with their interests. From one day to the next, you might feel completely different, increasing the need for testing recurrently.

Employees should have the ability to formally restate their professional interests, once in a while.

madness

Insanity is misattributing the same Einstein quote repeatedly. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.” It turns out Einstein never said that.

The definition for crazy madness still holds ground, in any case.

People are hired every day, only to see them leave a couple of months later. If the goal is to grow as a company, that translates to pushing water uphill with a rake.

Hiring new people without knowing why the current people are leaving is kind of a crazy thing to pursue.

retention levels

There are levels to employee retention. Ordered from disastrous to excellent.

People are leaving faster than you can properly onboard them. They run away from your company as if they’ve seen a ghost. That’s bad.

People aren’t considering leaving your company at all. At the same time, they stopped being engaged years ago. They stay with your company due to the benefits your company provides. Their productivity is still stuck in the previous century.

People are considering leaving but really take their time. They’re concerned with how job-hopping might look on their resume, so they stay on for about a year, albeit unengaged.

Your employees are somewhat engaged and aren’t actively looking for a new job. If a better offer comes along, though, they might leave.

Your employees are super engaged. Beginning to think of leaving your company isn’t even an option.

Question: what’s worse than the first couple of levels of retention? Answer: not knowing where your employees are.

relevant retention

Do you have a problem with employee retention? Yes or no?
When talent is quitting faster than you can hire them, it’s pretty apparent you have a problem with retention. A major one at that.

When talent isn’t quitting, ever, you also have a problem with retention. While the talent may be very loyal, they might not be productive at all. That’s the downside to loyalty.

Retention, the principle, in itself doesn’t entirely cover the load. You want to aim for relevant retention.

Relevant retention means keeping talent engaged simply because engaged talent is more productive.

Talent engagement efforts should precede retention efforts.

two hour hook

As little as two hours of compelling gameplay, that’s all it takes (for me) to get sucked in and become (temporarily) addicted. What would entrepreneurs give to get people hooked on their product or service in 120 minutes or less? Spoiler alert: a lot.

Five seemingly random elements make for an immersive experience — exploration, friction, progress, increasing complexity, and reward.

Products and services encompassing these principles are sure to get quick adoption and long-lasting retention.

trust is undervalued

Pay it when you can. That’s what the friendly guy at the bakery told me this morning. Their payment terminal was temporary out of order, and I rarely carry cash around. I only visited this bakery in particular half a dozen times and hadn’t met the store clerk earlier.

I absolutely love this tiny gesture. Here is why.

It oozes trust. The bakery is telling me they trust me that I’ll come around (one day). Granted, the amount is relatively small. It’s not like driving a new car off the lot without any securities. Still, I appreciate the gesture.

Obviously, I will return with the money. Furthermore, I’ll (probably) tip generously because I sure appreciated the hassle they saved me.

Finally, I’ll probably become a repeat customer. Reciprocity is real. Either knowingly or unknowingly, I will want to reciprocate this random act of kindness.

On average, it’s about 6.5 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep one. The above number varies tremendously based on your industry.

Be like the baker. Take (small) bets on trust now and then.