Employee Retention

Thanks to Dr. Todd Harris, Director of Research at PI Worldwide (www.piworldwide.com),

Harris’ research has identified 10 specific tactics that can minimize employee flight risk in a resurgent economy, and help to ensure happier and more productive employees. Here’s a brief summary of each retention tactic:

Be Strategic—Identify the talent pools within your organization that are most critical to your future success;
Work the Data—Measure and analyze potential drivers of employee turnover; be sure to look at both internal and external factors;
Hire Right—Make sure you have a process in place to hire people with the requisite knowledge, skills and abilities to be successful in a given job;
‘Embed’ Your Employees—Foster a workplace environment that allows employees to develop a rich and satisfying professional relationship with co-workers;
Check Early Interactions—Give new employees clear and ongoing support from the beginning, and check in regularly to ensure that they’re gaining traction;
Pay Attention to High Risk Groups—Some employees are a greater flight risk than others; give special attention to them;
Identify Growth Opportunities—Superior growth and development opportunities can reduce turnover; make sure the each employee has a professional development plan;
Develop Great Leaders—Managers play a key role in employee retention; make sure that your managers foster employee commitment;
Monitor Employee Satisfaction—Regularly monitor employee satisfaction, by both quantitative and qualitative means;
Work on Job Design—Design jobs to promote interdependence, feedback from others, social support, and interaction with those outside of the organization.

Resources

"The Science and Practice of Employee Retention" by Bill von Achen, Best Practices for Business website - the article summarize 10 specific tactics to improve employee retention

Wikipedia page on Wikipedia:Employee Retention discusses various theories, models, tools and best practices (several are also cited above).

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has "Tips on Employee Retention" lists several best practices, some of which are cited above.