Keeping The Best: Strategies for Employee Retention

BY HELEN TSOTSOS

The rapid growth of the spa industry, like so many others,has prompted a major dilemma: the hiring and subsequent retention of good employees. Ensuring the acquisition and retention of great employees is the task of a tuned-in leader. Getting good employees is hard enough so, once you’ve got them, how do you keep them? Smart employers make it a strategic imperative to understand what your employees want and need and then give it to them. It’s a sure fire way to ensure your best people won’t bolt.

Numerous trends influence a workers decision to stay or go. A great economy makes your precious human commodity extremely marketable, so take heed. Competitors, for example, have been known to tempt your best people away with promises of something bigger and better. Your best people may even decide to strike out on their own taking all that you’ve invested with them.

Today’s marketplace is dealing with a new generation of workers. These workers have shifted how they view their careers. With higher priorities around quality of life, autonomy and flexibility, employees are seeking more work/life balance, flexible work hours, better working relationships, interesting/fun work and learning and growth opportunities. And, if you don’t know this, your competition sure does.

To hold onto your best people you have to be one step ahead of current trends. Understanding what makes employees want to stay (or go) is only the first step. Designing and executing strategies to keep them is the next step. An employee leaves their job for the following reasons:

• Poor working conditions
• Lack of appreciation/recognition/rewards
• Little or no support
• Limited advancement opportunities
• Inadequate compensation

To counteract these facts, start by creating and maintaining a workplace that draws, retains and nourishes the best people. Create strategies where there is a focus on relationship building. Especially significant here is laying out what constitutes acceptable behaviors. These include how you treat your employees and how they treat one another.

When it comes to offering support, make it easy for your people to get their job done. Offer up the necessary training, tools, equipment and information that will enhance and develop performance and satisfaction. Develop growth and advancement strategies that incorporate personal goals as well as professional ones. Finally, compensation strategies must allow for a broader focus than salaries and commissions.

Leadership and management styles rank high for influencing an employee’s decision to stay or leave. Bad bosses are often sited as the reason for an employee bailing. In a recent on-line survey at the website www.keepem.com approximately 2000 respondent indicated what some of these bad behaviors were. The worst of them were:

• Belittling people in front of others
• Lying
• Being condescending or demeaning
• Humiliating or embarrassing others privately or publicly
• Micromanaging

Any boss who can’t or won’t take an honest look at his or her own behavior may find that they are destined to repeat the job search cycle. In Love ‘Em or Leave ‘Em: Getting Good People to Stay, Beverly Kaye, co-author with Sharon Jordan-Evans states that ineffective bosses can change if they are shown how their behavior lowers morale and contributes to pushing people out the door. Even though it may be a hard pill to swallow, acknowledging your own ineffective behaviors and their influence on your staff is a powerful step to keeping your best. Ms. Kaye recommends coaches and professional development programs to help make and sustain changes.

So how exactly can you find out what your employees really want? Simple. Open the doors of communication. For general feedback, surveys or regular staff meetings are a simple and effective format for gathering information and data. It is imperative with these formats that you authentically invite open and honest comments. In other words, check your ego at the door. For more specific feedback regular one-on-one interviews, reviews of expectations and exit interviews are vital information gathering techniques.

Retaining your best employees starts with the hiring process. Have a clear and well laid out checklist of competencies and other expectations. State clearly your values and what your organization stands for. To ease new employees into your culture and environment, design orientations that indicate how your organizational values are expressed in action. Values are not just lofty concepts; they show up lively and energized in actions and behaviors.

When it comes to giving rewards and recognition to your employees, use creativity and innovation. The process can be fun and interesting if you actually involve employees in designing their own rewards and recognition programs. It will, without a doubt, prove to be motivating and have considerable impact on employee satisfaction and commitment. Rewards and recognition can be as simple as a thank you or an acknowledgment or as profound as showing your trust and respect through your actions.

Create personal growth plans with all employees. It will keep you abreast of how to support each individual’s growth and development. Individual plans and strategies
can easily be aligned with corporate agendas to create win-win scenarios. Subsequently, do your part. Make it easy for your valued employees to get what they want while they get their jobs done.

Valued employees may leave for a variety of reasons despite any efforts you’ve made to retain them. Find out what the reasons are just the same. Conduct an exit interview. It’s an opportunity to learn as well as to end on a positive note. Insights may even be gained on to improve future processes. This small investment of time can prove to save much time and effort in the long run.

Keeping the best means being the best. What would it take for you to be the best?

Helen Tsotsos is an Adler Certified Professional Coach (ACPC), an entrepreneur, a certified trainer and leader. She has partnered 20 years of success as a day spa owner with her Business Coaching practice to serve the industry she knows and loves. Helen understands the needs and challenges of spa professionals and uses her practical wisdom, experience and education to motivate and inspire her clients through change and growth. She has worked with business leaders, managers and executives to support and enhance personal and professional success through powerful visioning, creative strategies and effective action plans. For more information on individual and group coaching, customized training programs and workshops, please contact Helen at (416) 466-1541or email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or visit www.successdynamics.ca.

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