| RESOURCES
Creative Ideas for Retaining Employees
by Roger E. Herman and Joyce L. Gioia-Herman
If you're like most employers responding to opinion surveys today, finding and keeping competent workers is your major challenge. Employee turnover is costly, causing workforce instability, reduced efficiency, lower effectiveness, and negative impact on the bottom line. While everyone agrees that turnover is a problem, there seems to be a reluctance to invest resources to retain top talent. Part of this hesitancy comes from a sense that counter-turnover efforts really don't make a difference; people leave anyway.
Ignoring employee turnover won't make it go away. The risk of doing nothing is great. The loss of customers, supplier confidence, investor support, and employee morale can be very expensive. Can you put a value on these costs? What does it cost when you lose a valued customer because you can no longer provide the level of service, expertise, or reliability demanded in today's competitive market?
Your Laundry's Ready
Wilton Conner Packaging Company, Charlotte, North Carolina, enjoys .5 percent turnover. Yes, that's half of one percent. In addition to having a caring, enthusiastic CEO who rides around his 1,000,000 square foot plant on a bicycle, the company's 634 employees enjoy some unique benefits that inspire them to stay.
Wilton Conner employs laundresses who work in a fully-equipped facility attached to the plant. Workers bring in their dirty clothes in the morning. While they are working, their clothes are washed, dried, folded, and packaged to take home at the end of the day - for a dollar a load. Some of those employees commute back and forth to work in company-provided vans. When the maintenance employees aren't busy at the plant, they hop in a company truck and travel to employees' homes where they perform minor repairs for the cost of materials only. No more worries about leaky toilets, squeaky doors, or broken windows.
Celebrating Special Occasions
Each of us has a birthday to celebrate - once a year, every year. We also celebrate important events like wedding anniversaries, the date we joined the company, and children's birthdays. These dates are important to us. If we get a card, a phone call, a letter, flowers or even a gift from a company executive to celebrate the occasion with us, it's special. And it matters.
Mary Kay Ash, the charismatic founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics in Dallas, Texas, knows that her people appreciate her attention to special occasions. They tell her so. She personally signs each and every birthday and anniversary card sent to her employees. She also recognizes other special occasions. New babies receive little silver banks in the shape of ducks. She acknowledges weddings with silver bowls. Employees receive free lunches (for two) or free movie tickets on their birthdays. Plus, employees receive a $100 savings bond for every five years of service.
A Paid Vacation, Plus Expenses
Motek, a software company in Beverly Hills, California, understands the value of a good vacation. Each year, the CEO, Ann Price, gives each of her employees one month off - with pay. Price also gives each employee $5,000, but there is a catch. That $5,000 must be used for airlines, cruises, hotels, and other travel expenses. The $5,000 is earned by employees week by week. For each week they work, $100 goes into their vacation fund. Employees are expected to take this time off to rest and rejuvenate. With $5,000 and thirty days to spend, they're able to enjoy much more substantial vacations.
Forced vacation? Payoffs to spend time away from the office? It may sound crazy, but it works. Price reports that having employees who feel fresh and relaxed create a better office environment, produce better quality work, and are happier people. The stable workforce has built a camaraderie that supports high productivity and customer satisfaction.
If employees leave the company, they lose their vacation fund, but if they stay, it's a wonderful benefit. It's easy to understand why there is practically no turnover at Motek.
Oh, one other thing. Motek also provides lunch for all employees on payday and the day before payday.
Overcoming the Sleepies
People get sleepy at work, with potential negative impacts on productivity and safety. What can we do to help alleviate this problem? Some companies have installed nap rooms at work, while others encourage nutrition to boost higher energy levels. Other organizations recognize that physical activity can also wake people up and re-energize them. A few firms are even sponsoring scheduled recesses with intramural games.
Gymboree, Burlingame, California, operates/franchises more than 400 interactive parent/child play programs worldwide. Corporate leaders realized that there might be an interesting synergy between their products and their desire to keep their employees happy and fresh. Applying the company's "celebrate childhood" philosophy Gymboree began a once-a-week program of "corporate recess." Every Thursday at 3 pm, a bell sounds over the public address system. Recess lasts for 20 minutes. Their campus sports a lake with a walking area, and hopscotch is available. The purpose is to get employees to spend a few minutes together outside of the work environment catching up with one another, getting some fresh air and exercise, and further creating a sense of teamness.
There's more: each Wednesday at 3 pm, Gymboree provides snack time for its employees. This break also lasts for about 20 minutes, during which time workers come together in a central location to munch on snacks that range from chips and salsa to cookies and milk.
Taking Care of People
There's an increasingly strong movement underway today to become-and stay-more physically fit. More people are concerned about nutrition, exercise, stress management and avoiding habits like smoking or consumption of alcoholic beverages. Employers, as they become sensitive to the needs and interests of their workers, are finding ways to support those employee initiatives. In some cases, the employer actually initiates the higher attention to wellness, encouraging the employee to invest more time and attention in keeping his or her body in shape.
While not all employees buy into this wellness movement, those who do really appreciate the interest and support of their employers. That support comes in many forms, varying from company to company and even among groups of employees within companies. The motivation of the employer varies as well, with some genuinely interested in responding to their people and some also seeking ways to better manage insurance premiums. Whatever the rationale, more employers are investing in wellness.
The Taylor Group, an applications service provider and solutions integrator in Bedford, New Hampshire, believes in taking care of its people - literally. Health benefits at Taylor are quite comprehensive. Beyond what you'd think of as "normal" healthcare benefits - reimbursement for doctor's visits, dental, eye, etc. - Taylor reaches further for overall wellness. The organization believes that healthy employees are happy employees.
With annual flu shots, CPR training, tuition reimbursement for wellness classes, career development training, and a CD-ROM library, Taylor moves people care to an entirely new level. After the annual company meeting in February, massage therapists are available for the employees.
Physical examinations given to employees each year as part of the employer's benefit program can have far-reaching impacts. A Massachusetts company which gives employee physicals every year won the loyalty of an employee - and her co-workers - by insisting that all employees participate in an annual health screen. The woman learned that the medical examiners discovered the early signs of kidney disease. Because the problem was diagnosed so early after the onset of the problem, medicine was prescribed that eliminated the problem before it got worse. She testifies that the company saved her life; she's likely to stay with that employer for a long time.
The List Goes On
Every day we learn about another company doing good things for its people. Those employers who want to earn the respect, gratitude, and loyalty of their people will continue to develop new ways to demonstrate their support of valued employees. Their initiatives will give them a competitive edge - in keeping current employees and in attracting others of the same caliber.
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Copyright 2003 by Roger E. Herman and Joyce L. Gioia-Herman. All rights reserved. Roger E. Herman and Joyce L. Gioia-Herman are Strategic Business Futurists concentrating on workforce and workplace issues. They are authors of a number of books in the field and are sought-after speakers on trends and employee retention. Information about them and their work is available at www.herman.net. Contact the authors through roger@herman.net. | 
