| Employer of Choice Status Requires Communication |
Start with the "stay interview."The war for talent continues to beleaguer employers from coast to coast, forcing companies big and small to find creative ways to retain and attract qualified and engaged people to join in their successes. Becoming an employer of choice is a lot easier than you think. In fact, you might already be one. "People need to be reminded why you're a good place to work," says Krista Uggerslev, assistant professor at the Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba. "You need to let people know why you're an employer of choice." But before you start advertising your message, you need to decide and, in a lot of cases, find out, what it is you want to tell people. One way to do that is with the "stay" interview. Relatively new to the human resource management field, stay interviews involve talking to your current employees about why they choose to stay with your company rather than look for work elsewhere. Because if you can find out why they're staying, it's easier to tell potential talent why you're a great place to work. Stay interviews can be informal and shouldn't be part of other retention strategies, such as performance reviews. Let them be conversational in nature, but make sure you keep it focused; stay interviews aren't an opportunity for employees to air their grievances. Ask direct questions and find out what makes your team "jump out of bed in the morning." Find out their personal and professional goals and what you can do to support their efforts. Once you've collected and analysed the information from your existing employees, start shouting it from the rooftops."Just because you have desirable qualities doesn't mean everyone knows about them," says Uggerslev. "Imaging and branding your organization (as an employer of choice) is a great way to move forward." One cautionary note about stay interviews is in identifying things your employees aren't happy about. If someone has a valid issue about the organization, you need to address the issue or risk losing that employee because of reduced morale. Conducting stay interviews is an affordable and effective way to find out what your strengths are while making the members of your team feel valued and increase their loyalty to the company. As Debbie O'Halloran of WorkWise puts it, have the stay interview "because the exit interview is too late." |
