THE DO'S AND DON'T'S OF EMPLOYEE RETENTION

 A Message from the President

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to 2011's first issue of our quarterly newsletter. As the year gets off to a running start, many of us are already well underway putting fresh strategies and business plans to work and preparing for new opportunities and growth this year.

As the economy picks up and businesses begin to recover growth rates, it's important to make sure your best and brightest employees – the ones who've helped your business survive when things weren't so optimistic (and thrive when things are looking up) – will stick around in spite of growing opportunities within the job market. Losing valued staff members can be damaging to your business in terms of both training and opportunity costs. That's why this month we're focusing on a key element to building and maintaining a great team: employee retention. The strategies and tips below offer some helpful (and cost-effective) ways to hold on to your top talent.

Thank you for joining us again in the New Year: I look forward to learning alongside you as we work to bring you more industry news and insights in 2011!

Sincerely,

Elizabeth M. Rice, SPHR

 Holding on to Your Top Talent: The Do's and Don't's of Employee Retention

Assembling and maintaining a winning team can be one of your company's greatest assets, and is a key factor in building a strong business with a growing bottom line. Great managers know that the ability to hire top talent is a key ingredient for success. However, building that team is only the first half of success: the second lies in keeping them together. Anyone who's watched a great employee leave for another opportunity knows that losing even one top performer can often have critical implications for a business, impacting everything from office culture and organizational effectiveness to managerial costs and profitablity.

As the economy begins to turn around and more jobs become available, companies without strong retention practices are in greater danger of losing those key players to better opportunities. In fact, experts cite employee retention as one of the top workforce challenges for this year. A recent survey by Manpower reports that "84 percent of workers plan to look for a new job in 2011." According to Don Tennant of IT Business Edge, the past couple of years have taken their toll on employees. "Pent-up frustrations with cuts in pay and benefits, watching fellow employees lose their jobs, and fatigue due to working more with less will push workers to begin searching for greener pastures," he says. "At the same time, employers' star performers will be targeted by external recruiters for poaching…those unprotected and unappreciated stars will become vulnerable and open to a recruiter's pitch."

So what can companies do to be prepared, and to protect their best and brightest from jumping ship – or worse, getting snatched away by the competition? While rewarding valued employees with a pay raise is, of course, a tried-and-true retention tool, companies without the ability to increase employee wages can still build strong staff loyalty and retention without spending a lot of additional money. Below is a key list of Do's and Don't's for managers looking to develop some new, improved, and cost-effective retention practices: