Employee retention is a strong issue in any organisation. And employers are only too aware of Generation Y and the full-employment situation. It’s an employee driven market: accept it. And in the lead generation industry, the ability to retain staff can strongly influence the way clients want to engage, and their confidence in a long term relationship. Besides results, lead generation is all about building relationships, so it makes sense to develop well informed consultants who also deliver the same passion for client services as those clients. What you don’t want is a steady turnover of consultants representing your business to the same prospects, as the perception of your business as a stable one may be shaken considerably. Who would want to outsource a company with a low retention rate? Why would you outsource a problem you would avoid in house?

In ‘How To Find the Heart of Your Employer Brand,’ Penny Burke, writer of the book ‘Forced Focus,’ stated “there are far too many Australian companies who spend a significant amount on making their external brand relationship engage with their external customers – but put in precious little resource for building the same sort of engagement with their internal brand.”

But what can company directors do?

Instead of chaining people to their desks and throwing out token gestures about work-life balance, how can one hold their employees for longer?

In ‘Employee Retention: Top Tips For Retaining Employees,” Roger Herman and Malcolm Moore, employee retention experts, listed the key elements for building a strong company culture, with employees who want to stay.

• Hire the right people to begin with: Poor hiring practices means hiring people who may not be completely in sync with your organisations values. Moore and Herman recommend that you never rush when hiring, that you never hire people who expect more from the position than you can offer, and to study their track record – carefully.
• Engage in longer orientations with new employees: “Go out of your way to make them feel wanted and valued. Take the time to educate them about your company and your industry…help them to understand what you expect of them and how their job fits into the grand scheme of things.”
• Live the values: The CEO must embrace and reinforce the organisational values that they have put into place.
• Use creative rewards and recognition: “Look for creative ways to recognise and reward employees and constantly celebrate the successes, big and little.”
• Create individualised personal growth plans: conducting one-on-one meetings whereby you lay out an annual plan for their personal and professional growth. This plan can include in-house training, reading books, watching videos etc.
• Make it easier for people to get their jobs done: “employees hate having to fight red tape to get the supplies, equipment, information and support they need to get the job done. Eliminating bureaucratic processes and systems snafus will go a long way toward creating a contented work force.” Focus on their strengths and compensate for weakness where it is cost effective to do so. EG: outsource the cold calling, qualification and appointment setting of the sales process so that sales people can focus on what they really love – meeting with and converting warm prospects to sales.
• Conduct exit interviews: “Exit interviews for people who resign offer two important retention opportunities – the possibility of convincing the employee not to resign and identifying conditions that may contribute to employee turnover. In them assume all exits are reversible, ask a lot of open ended questions and if it is about money, determine whether you can afford to match their offer.
• Avoid the top three retention mistakes: ignoring changing marketplace dynamics; attempting to use money as a cure-all; and lack of appreciation.

‘Getting the Culture Right Is Not Easy,’ featured in the Human Capital magazine, talked about how attracting and retaining motivated, dedicated high-quality employees, is a constant challenge. But they say supporting ones employees is a necessity. “A supportive workplace culture has been associated with many benefits for both employees and employers, including higher levels of effective commitment, higher levels of jobs satisfaction, lower levels of stress and less conflict between work and family responsibilities. Making work-life balance policies available is an important step to helping employees balance their work and personal lives, and human resource professionals play a pivotal role in defining the workplace culture.” Kris Webb, HR director of national law firm Clayton Utz, is an ambassador for supporting employees, particularly women. Women make up 62% of her workforce and in order to show support and to encourage the advancement of women, she implemented initiatives such as flexible working arrangements, job sharing, part-time work, access to childcare and leave of absence have provided an understanding and supportive workplace for the mothers within it. These initiatives are also characteristics of Harvest Management; “When I worked at The Body Shop, I loved that they walked the talk. I loved their family-orientated culture,” Ingrid Maynard, CEO of Harvest stated, “It strongly influenced the way I structured my company and in the early days, I provided free child care so that I could retain talented women who otherwise would need to say no. We all won, and those original team members are still with me 3 years later.”

Webb also stated that in order to obtain a high retention rate, she has had to ‘shake off the shackles of tradition,’ to provide multiple career paths and flexible ways of working. She said that she constantly has to adapt so that they can attract people, develop them and therefore, keep them longer. Webb has developed her company into one of an egalitarian nature; the passion of the people surrounding her make it a great place to work. “It’s full of really passionate people, people who take the law incredibly seriously, but who don’t take themselves too seriously…It’s not fully of ego-maniacs, it’s a fun place to work.”

Questions are an other essential component to the art of cold calling. People will always be willing to help, and questioning will enable them to lower their guard. Also, "you cannot expect someone to believe you right away and just sign up after describing your companies objectives. You have to ask the right questions." (InfoGoRound, 2005)

Ultimately, in order to achieve high retention rates, a company needs to accept that it has 2 groups of customers: internal and external. Unless its internal customers are happy, satisfied, engaged, challenged and supported at work, not only will a high retention rate not be possible, but it will directly impact on the way they approach their role. Maybe I don’t need to connect the dots, but happy employees will always result in happy customers. Making your employees your first priority will ensure that ongoing success is achieved!