When a manager says Employee A is a retention risk, how do you respond?
I ask a lot of questions to try to determine if it is the employee, the job, or both are causing them to believe the person is a retention risk.
1. Is this a difficult to fill job? How many days did it take to fill the job the last time it was open?
2. Is this job critical to the success of the organization?
3. Is this employee a key successor (“ready now”) for a higher-level job?
4. Is this employee or job a single point of failure?
5. Does this employee have high potential and high performance?
6. Is this employee an “influencer” within the company or externally?
7. Does this employee have skills or experience that are in high demand? i.e., headhunters contact them regularly
8. Are they new in this job or their career? Do they need additional support and training?
9. Is the employee close to retirement? Do they have a “ready now” successor?
10. Is the employee a retention risk because of something in their personal life outside of work?
11. Do you anticipate promoting this employee within the next 12 months? If they leave the company, what would you do?
12. Is the employee a thought leader in their profession, industry, or organization? How visible is their thought leadership to others?
13. Is the employee actively networking and building relationships inside and/or outside of the organization?
14. Does this employee have unique expertise that we could only replace by finding an external candidate to fill the job?
15. Does the employee have a clearly defined career path? Has this been discussed more than once?
I record the no answers as 0 (zero) and then record the yes answers as 1 = low, 2 = medium, and 3 = high. Then I sum the numbers and I have a Retention Risk Score.
I then compare the Retention Risk Score of all the employees identified as a retention risk. And I partner with the leaders to determine how best to allocate resources (rewards, training, time with others for development support, assignment of special projects to support growth and learning, recognition, etc.)
Bias and favoritism can be present if you don’t get clarity on what a manager means when they say Employee A is a retention risk. This process is one way to help minimize that bias.
This process also provides a framework for how to allocate resources to your most critical employees identified as a retention risk.
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