Hire Recruits, but Lower Turnover

If a tight labor market has you scrambling to hire enough qualified workers, Ralph Palmen has some advice: Shut your backdoor.

Palmen, a longtime executive recruiter who is now a Seattle consultant, recently told a group of business operators that many companies don’t work hard enough to keep good employees.

While managers are focusing on bringing in recruits through the frontdoor, dissatisfied employees are leaving out the back. Palmen recommended four strategies to cut employee turnover:

* Stay close to employees.

* Improve communications.

* Stay competitive financially.

* Create a cozy work environment.

“People change jobs because of some dissatisfaction with their relationship with their employer,” he said. “You need to find out what they’re thinking and what their focus is in life.”

How do you stay close and find out what’s on workers’ minds?

“Just ask,” Palmen said.

It can be as simple as walking around and talking to people or as formal as forming employee focus groups or hiring an outside interviewer to find out how employees feel about their bosses and the job.

“There are always a lot of little things that go on in employment environments that irritate people that you don’t even think about,” Palmen said.

Managers, he added, can improve communications by keeping an open-door policy and by being more open in sharing company problems and challenges.

“Be the kind of manager people feel they can talk with,” Palmen said. “And smile. Managers who smile at employees have a lot better relationships.”

*

Guy Kennedy, who with other family members owns four Port of Subs shops in Snohomish County, is proud to have employees that have been with the business since it opened more than two years ago, something not particularly common in the fast-food industry.

“It’s important that employees have a workplace that’s comfortable,” he said. “They come to work and they can trust us. They’re dealing with a family.”

Kennedy said he tries to give employees a vested interest in the company’s success by offering opportunities for advancement.

“As we grow, so can they,” he said. “We’ve gone from two stores to four this summer. The manager in Marysville was with us for two years as an employee. The same thing in Everett.”

Pay and benefits need to be competitive, but people generally don’t change jobs on that basis alone, Palmen said.

Much more important is how they feel about their employer, their jobs and their work environment.

“Try to create a cozy environment for people to work in,” he said. “Everybody’s looking for a sense of belonging, something to be a part of.”

Arlington business consultant Scott Derr said companies often neglect that area.

“The more you make your employees feel appreciated, the more they’re apt to stay with you,” he said. “People need to be sure their self-worth is recognized.”

Everett’s Fluke Corp., which has experienced tough competition for skilled employees in recent years, has made a number of changes to become more employee-friendly.

“We do a lot around here to balance work and life,” company spokesman Gary Ball said. “We’re very flexible with employees when they need to leave during the day and maybe go down and watch their child’s play at school.”

The review process has also been changed to put more focus on employee goals and on developing plans for workers to get the training and experience to meet them.

“We also do exit interviews to make sure we specifically understand why you are leaving the company,” he said. “Sometimes there are things that could have been solved here. For example, we might find that an employee has to leave because of day-care issues.”

While Fluke tries to provide competitive wages and benefits, Ball agreed with Palmen that compensation alone isn’t the key to recruiting and keeping good workers.

“You’ve got to win in other ways,” he said.

Recognizing good work is one of those ways, Palmen said.

“Praise is the oxygen of the soul,” he added. “If you encourage them, pretty soon they will get more successful, you’ll keep your backdoor closed, and you won’t have that kind of turnover.”

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While keeping the backdoor closed is vital, it’s also essential to keep your frontdoor open to successfully recruit in today’s tight labor market.

Newspaper help-wanted ads still work, but they need to be creative and shouldn’t be a company’s only recruiting strategy, he said.

He recommended that employers read trade publications for key phrases that relate to a job and try to employ them in a clever way in the small headlines over help wanted ads.

Most people looking for jobs will scan the ads and circle those they find interesting, he noted. “Ads that are fresh and different make people want to call because you’ve injected some personality,” he said. “You’re going to get circled, and that’s all you’re trying to do.

“People don’t want jobs, they want relationships.”

He added that ads shouldn’t have a lot of “must haves,” meaning employers should make it easy for people to apply instead of rule themselves out.

“People don’t like to fail,” he said. “It’s amazing how often someone is looking for an ‘exceptional’ candidate. Most of us just consider ourselves average people. You’ve got to open the doors and make people want to come in.”

Offering to train people always brings in more applicants. Likewise an ad “that gives a little hint that you might have a fun place to work,” Palmen said.

In addition to ads, Palmen suggested that companies use signs, pay current employees a referral bonus if they bring in a successful job candidate and form relationships with employment firms, recruiters and government-subsidized job programs.