Do you know what your employees think of your business?

November 8, 2018

ISSN# 1545-2646

Do you know what your employees think of your business?

There are lots of discussions about why employees either are attracted to a particular business or why they move on to another.  In a talent starved marketplace, lots of businesses are looking for talent to hire into their organizations.  Part of this is growth, needing more people to expand their present capabilities to meet with growing demands from their customers.  Others are just trying to replace those employees who have either left for greener pastures or have been moved along due to not fitting into the company’s performance objectives.

Turnover whether planned or not is a key part of the stable strategic growth of your business.  If your organization is battling in the marketplace to attract new and additional talent, you can’t be caught in a revolving door of simply replacing those leaving.  This is a no win situation for all parties.

To help curb the neutral game of hiring when a position is open you must be in front of the change.  As the economy continues to cause demand and employers get into the wooing process of stealing employees, you need to be ready and understand why your employees either like the environment and opportunity at your company or what you need to do to make it better for everyone’s sake.

One technique some companies use are exit interviews. These can bring some valuable insights into why a given person is leaving a company.  Unfortunately, these exit interviews can become fairly awkward.  Although you might think the person has nothing to lose by unloading all the thoughts and ideas they might have about your business, they are somewhat reserved because they don’t necessarily want to burn a bridge which will come back to haunt them later.  They don’t want a black mark in their file.  They also have friends and colleagues which still work at the business and don’t want them to be in an awkward situation if they spill the beans on this or that issue.

A potentially better way to understand what is really going on in your business is to capture some valuable insight into the business during employee reviews or company meetings.  Even better is to make yourself as accessible as possible and go out into the business. Regularly pull someone aside to get their feedback/input on topics and overall environmental states of the company.

We tend to know the bottom line numbers. We tend to know sales and expenses.  We tend to know what our competition is doing. We tend not to be in direct touch with our company and our employees.  This is not a blanket statement but too often owners are surprised by this person leaving etc.  They wonder why or what could have been done to avoid this loss of a valuable resource to the company.  If you are driving the car looking in the rear view mirror then you are more likely to have a crash in the near future.

Looking for ways to understand your organization environment? Call JKL Associates at (313) 527-7945 and let’s start a dialogue.

Questions or comments – email us at partners@jklassociates.com or call our Office at (313) 527-7945
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 Copyright – JKL Associates 2018

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