At the end of every year, we are likely to see a rash of articles in the business press reporting the percentage of employees who have made a New Year’s resolution to find a better job.
Over the past 10 years or so, the percentage has ranged from about 15 – 30 percent, but, according to a recent Gallup Workforce Panel survey, right now, 51 percent of U.S. employees are watching the job market or actively looking for a new job.
The good news here is that more than half of your competitors’ employees are looking for new opportunities and the time is ripe for recruiting new talent. The bad news is, of course, that half your people may be looking to jump ship.
So, do you have any effective strategies in place to replace those who may bid you adieu, and what are you doing to keep your top talent on board and happy?
7 hiring resolutions you should make
If not, here are some resolutions you might want to make for yourself:
- I will get (#) referrals from present employees, customers, and vendors for potential new employee applicants each month.
- I will reach out to at least (#) of our best former employees to invite them to come back every week.
- In order to retain my best people, I’m going to skip exit interviews and conduct quarterly retention/stay interviews. (Exit interviews are about the organization and the departing employee’s manager. Stay interviews are about the employee and his/her job satisfaction as well as short- and long-term goals and objectives.)
- I will religiously use chat outs during every new employee’s first three months on the job.
- I am going to make it a point to catch people doing things right as well as find creative ways to make our work here more fun.
- I will issue (#) verbal acknowledgments, letters, and notes of positive recognition each week all year long.
- I will spend more time with our best employees than I do with our substandard performers.
This originally appeared in Humetrics December 2015 Hiring Hints newsletter.
