A Manager's Guide to Keeping the Best and Brightest
Author:
Richard P. Finnegan
ISBN:
9780814436493
Format:
Paper or Softback
Price:
$14.95
Overview
Don't wait until it's too late.
It's the worst sort of surprise: A valued and seemingly happy employee
gives his notice. Can you do anything at this point Probably not. Could
you have anticipated the departure and tried to prevent it? Absolutely.
That's where this book comes in.
This practical guide introduces managers to a powerful new engagement
and retention tool: the stay interview. Smart companies have begun
conducting these periodic reviews in order to discover why their
important talent might leave and to solve any problems before they
actually quit.
Written by the retention expert who pioneered the process, The
Stay Interview shows managers how to:
Prepare for the meeting Anticipate an employee's top issues • Set
realistic expectations from the start • Respond to difficult questions •
Listen effectively and dig deeper • Craft a detailed and effective stay
plan complete with timeline • Assess each employee's level of
engagement, predict potential exits, and communicate results to upper
management
Complete with the five best questions to ask and sample scripts for
different situations, The Stay Interview is the key to a
more engaged . . . and much more productive team.
About the Author
RICHARD P. FINNEGAN is the CEO of C-Suite Analytics, a consultancy
specializing in engagement and retention solutions. He has been cited by
BusinessWeek
and
Chief Executive as the leading thinker on employee retention.
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Cover Copy
It's happened to all of us. One day a valued and seemingly happy
employee gives you his notice, and before you can find out what went
wrong, he's gone.
Was there anything you could have done? Any way of anticipating his
departure? Any means of revealing his discontent? Yes. It's called the
"stay interview,? and the best organizations and managers are
increasingly making it a key element of their engagement strategies.
This book, written by the retention expert who pioneered the process,
shows you how to use it with your own people.
The stay interview is a periodic meeting you conduct with your
individual employees to shed light on any possible problems while
there's still time for you to address them. A stay interview will only
work, though, if it's done right. So this straightforward guide shows
you how to:
Prepare for the meeting • Anticipate your employee's top issues • Set
realistic expectations from the start • Establish trust • Respond to
difficult questions • Listen effectively and dig deeper • Craft a
detailed and effective stay plan complete with a timeline • Assess each
employee's level of engagement, predict potential exits, and communicate
your results to upper management
Is it really possible to improve your team's engagement, retention, and
productivity by just asking employees what you can do to make their jobs
better? Absolutely, and the results will speak for themselves. Complete
with sample scripts for different situations and the five best questions
to ask, The Stay Interview provides all the guidance you need to raise
your engagement scores and minimize your turnover rate . . .before it's
too late.
RICHARD P. FINNEGAN is the CEO of C-Suite Analytics, a consultancy
specializing in engagement and retention including a software-based stay
interview solution. An in-demand speaker, he has been cited by BusinessWeek
and Chief Executive as a leading thinker on employee retention.
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Excerpt
CHAPTER 1: THE STAY INTERVIEW
The concept of stay interviews seems way too simple. Is it really
possible to improve your team's engagement, retention, and productivity
just by asking employees what you can do to make their jobs better?
The answer is "yes? because stay interviews address the two great crises
facing business today simply, cheaply, and where the crises originate.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of employees who
voluntarily quit is increasing sharply each year, while Gallup finds
that since 2000 employee engagement levels in the United States have
hardly budged, and they were dismal to start. Seventy percent of
American workers are not engaged by their jobs, and 18 percent are
actively disengaged. Only 30 percent are engaged, which means that more
than twice as many people are committed to avoiding their work as there
are committed to doing it.
To combat these disastrous trends we will soon be spending, according to
a third study, $1.5 billion each year on top of the other billions we
have already spent. These dollars are poured into well-intentioned
initiatives such as Career Day, Employee Appreciation Week, town hall
meetings, better newsletters—all the scattershot, impersonal things that
corporate imagines will make companies better.
However, when was the last time you heard a really good worker say, "My
boss treats me like dirt, but I'm holding on for Employee Appreciation
Week. I'll get a balloon and a hot dog and I'll be stoked for another
year??
The trouble with these programs is that they are implemented above and
around each employee's direct supervisor, and the data has long been
clear and conclusive: The primary reason employees work harder and stay
longer is a good relationship with their direct supervisors.
As one-on-one meetings between leaders and both newly hired and
continuing employees, stay interviews reinforce good relationships,
forge new ones, and help repair those that are strained. On that small
foundation great companies are built.
What Are Stay Interviews?
To know what stay interviews are, it is important to note what they are
not.
- They are not team meetings or focus groups. They are private,
individual meetings with each employee.
- They are not conducted by HR because supervisors are "too busy.? They
are conducted by direct supervisors, who must own their talent.
- They are not intended to craft development plans. They aren't based on
the assumption that all employees want to grow. And they don't
prioritize professional growth over schedules, colleagues, input, and
other aspects of work. They reveal what is important to the employees
and how their desires can be satisfied.
- They are not focused on job performance. They are aimed instead at
making employees' work lives more rewarding and comfortable.
- They are not something faddish to be done occasionally. They are a
management priority conducted on a specific schedule with required
follow-ups.
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Table of Contents
CONTENTS
1 The Stay Interview | 1
2 Preparing to Conduct Stay Interviews | 11
3 Four Essential Skills | 27
4 Managing the Exchange | 39
5 Developing Stay Plans | 55
6 Closing and Forecasting | 71
7 Avoiding the Thirteen Stay Interview Traps | 87
8 Experienced Managers Tell Their Tales | 97
9 Based on a True Story | 115
Index | 123
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