retention

patg

Any ideas on promoting retention in a production environment--specifically an automated packaging line? We pay competitive wages for our region and have a fabulous benefit package. Our crew's average age is 28 and our longest term ee is at 5 years. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Gillian3

Number one - HR isn't the retention department. We can aid retention with good recruiting, selection, new employee orientation practice and fair compensation, but those are far less important than the management and communication style of direct supervision. That's where the focus needs to be in order to increase retention.

patg

Thanks Gillian. To clarify, I'm working with a young manager who has come to me asking for suggestions. We've just gone through a new hire process and I worked with him on making the right choice, we talk on a regular basis on management style. I was curious to hear of any "golden nuggets" from employers that have production crews with 20+ years of exp.

deniseE

A girlfriend of mine once worked for a company that was very high pressure...each ee was offered 4 "mental health days" a year. They were REQUIRED to take one each quarter.

She said this helped with burn out and turnover...

CindyG

I received a publication titled "What's Most Important to Employees Today?" Results were gathered from various employee opinion surveys and here are the results along with strategies for addressing them:
The five issues most frequently cited by employees as most important to them are:
1. Enjoyment of the Work.
a. Make certain employees have an opportunity to use their valued skills and abilities. b. Continually ask employees if they are enjoying their work assignments. c. Provide employees with more say in how they actually conduct their work. d. Ensure that employees receive the training they need. e. Provide an environment that enables employees to succed.

2. Work/Life Balance.
a. Make work/life balance a recognized organizational value. b. Mgmt should try to serve as role models for work/life balance. c. Reduce organizational inefficiencies that drain employee time and energy. d. Provide employees with scheduling flexibility.

3. Pay
a. Establish & communicate the organization's pay philosophy. b. Conduct salary surveys to make certain pay levels are appropriate. c. Eliminate clear internal pay inequities. d. Carefully script the messages supervisors transmit to employees about pay.

4. Clear Link between Pay and Performance
a. Eliminate across-the-board increases. b. Make sure salary reviews are conducted on time. c. Don't tolerate ineffective performers. d. In addition to pay increases, use other types of rewards for good performance such as recognition, opportunities for training, & interesting work assignments.

5. Adequate Staffing Levels
a. Conduct staffing audits to make certain staffing levels match workload. b. If possible, quickly replace departing employees. c. Use relief employees (cross-train).

Hope this helps! We have a turnover issue as well in our MI production facility. We only have about 25 employees and we had 136% turnover in 2004!!! We have some issues to address. We started with replacing the supervisor who was creating a negative work environment.

marc

There are lots of negatives associated with Golden Handcuffs, but most of them reside with the EE. That said, I once audited a real estate developer in Denver that had a great retention incentive. It involved a discretionary pre-tax profit sharing plan .

Example: Years 1,2 and 3, $10,000 is deposited in EEs account in plan for each year (and each year thereafter).

EE becomes vested in 1/3 of that years deposit for each year he/she stays. So at the end of year 3, the EE is vested in 3/3rds of year 1's deposit, 2/3rds of year 2's deposit and 1/3 of year 3. That vesting profile just keeps rolling forward. At any time the EE leaves the company, he/she walks away from all the unvested dollars.

Just a sample I thought creative.

pork1

I concurr, I have been in a retail company who wanted to make sure there was coins on the table for the concerned ee to leave on the table should the decision to leave is thought ablut. $50,000 was put on the table and invested in mutual funds by the ee and at the end of 3 years the first 10,000 became vested, then each year thereafter, until it was all vested and it would take 8 years to make claim for the entire amount which would have doubled after 6 years. Paid up insurance policys used to be a retention tool, but I believe they have gone bye bye. For a young workforce, the scholarship for them or any child for an in state university system should also be a key piece of retention carrot.

By the way only one of the management team ever made it to the full ownership of the first program. He was the CFO. The others were terminated for cause and the money stated in the company pile of assets. There happened to be the written clause that said if we terminate you for cause the entire amount is made null and void. A "prenup arrangement for the marriage".

I have always been told that financial incentives only work, when the value is closely tied to a limited number of retention issues and it must be achieveable and awarded when the goal has been reached.

I hope this might help!

PORK

LarryC

My experience in production management has taught me that to keep good people, you must have well trained , responsive supervisors who emulate a positive company culture. People don't leave a job. They leave a supervisor.