Is this the most underutilised retention tool?

One industry expert says there’s a fool-proof retention method which relatively few organisations make the most of.

BY Nicola Middlemiss 22 Mar 2017

Organisational misalignment is one of the most significant drivers of employee disengagement but set things straight and you could see some serious improvement, says one industry expert.

“People are often hired under one set of rules by the recruiting department, they’re trained under another set of rules by the training department and then on the job they’re evaluated under another set of rules by management,” says Rex Conner, founder of HR consultancy Mager Consortium.

“That disconnect causes a lot of confusion but if you would fix that, if you would take the time to establish performance objectives that can be used as a measure all the way through, then that’s a powerful retention tool.”

Conner – who recently penned “What if Common Sense Was Common Practice in Business?” – says everything someone is required to do on the job should be governed by a clear performance objective.

“That same objective is what you use to identify the skills a person needs to be hired, the skills a person needs for training and the skills for which they’ll be evaluated on the job,” he says.

“The reason that’s such a powerful retention tool is because people won’t be surprised, you’ve taken away all that subjectivity and people will know what they need to produce, how to do it and how they’ll be evaluated.”

Instead of ambiguous targets like taking initiative or providing world-class customer service, Conner says employers should offer examples so employees can measure their own performance without the need for a formal review.

“We need to get used to saying; ‘I want you to take more imitative which means I want you to be at work five minutes early, I want you volunteer for assignments, I want you to have your job summary in on time,’” explains Conner.