McKenzie Talent Management

Employee Retention

Most employers believe that staff leave their positions because of money and that they are pulled away by better offers.

The reality is different.

“Push” factors generally within the power of Managers are the initial stimuli that cause people to consider greener pastures, including the commonly cited lack of career development opportunities. In exit interviews, instead of asking “Why are you leaving?” the question should be “Why are you not staying?”.

There are over 50 well-researched engagement practices that are available to help you keep your talented and valued employees.

Evidence of Employee Retention

Dr. Jac Fitz-enz is arguably the world authority on employee retention, founding the Saratoga Institute in 1977, now a division of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. In 1999, he commenced a five year survey of close to 20,000 people to determine why they had left their employer, why they would choose to stay or consider leaving their current employer. This landmark study turned conventional wisdom on its head. Managers thought, and most still think, that employees leave for monetary reasons. The reality is very different.

The Gallup Organisation researched the area of employee engagement. They examined what percentage of people who were still employed by a business were actively engaged and motivated as against those who were actively or passively disengaged. They found that 75% of employees were disengaged!

They then linked disengagement to lower levels of customer service, safety, sales, profit and employee productivity with increased scores on an interview to leave. 

Career Development

Talented people are primarily motivated by the need to grow, develop and have challenging work. We design career development strategies around well-researched concepts for your staff in general and your high performers in particular. These include that:

• That over 70% of all effective management development occurs on the job
• The best mix of approaches to build critical and effective management skills are: 
• On the job learning from challenging job/tasks – 70% 
• Effective Bosses/Coaches/Mentors – 20% 
• Training Courses – 10% 
• Providing high performers with the kinds of work that matter most for long t