WE TRAIN OUR EMPLOYEES AND THEY LEAVE.

Does this resonate with you?

You recruit people, you train them, they learn a lot in your business and just when you start feeling that they are becoming productive, they leave. No matter whether they were experienced or fresher.

Have you become a training institute?

They love working with you. They respect you for the value you added to their career, but they get picked up by bigger companies at a fantastic pay package that we wish we SMEs could afford. You are helpless.... again. You start all over again.

I even heard some business owner’s strategy that they knowingly hire average candidates (not the top notch) so that no one else picks them..!

It is painful to experience this, not just because you feel rejected, but also have to start recruitment and training all over again while handling the menace created by the sudden vacuum. ( yes, mostly they leave without sufficient notice)

How to break this cycle?

Everyone Will Leave

Understand and accept the fact that everyone in your business is going to leave at some point in time, including the most trusted, loyal and favourite employees. And you too...

(unless you are immortal...! ). Some leave for higher pay package, some for better career opportunity, some leave because they can’t get along and some leave because they get bored. List is long but the fact is ‘everyone will leave’.

Accepting this fact will allow you to handle the challenge more objectively and you will be able to devise a long term strategy. Here are 3 tips to avoid the menace and take control.

Continuous Recruitment

Instead of starting the candidate search after someone has left you, run recruitment drives all the time. Keep searching, short-listing and interviewing candidates whether or not.. you have active requirement. This way you won’t hire candidates in desperation, but you will hire only the best talent. Another advantage of this strategy is that your team members will always be productive in presence of competition.

Also, take a fresh look at your training process. Are you training them on the job? It takes much longer to make them productive. Instead have a robust induction training process to shorten the training period. A great induction program ensures that the employee stays longer with the company.

Systematize

You can reduce dependency on talent or intelligence by installing systems and processes which are so clear and so simple that the routine day to day activities become no-brainer. Systematize the routine and humanize exceptions. There are so many examples like Amazon or Flipkart where the use of technology can perform millions of transactions every second. You don’t need sales people or cashier.

Systematizing your processes can allow the job to be done by semi-skilled or low-skilled person. And in such cases an immediate replacement becomes possible (that too at a better pay package) as you do not have to depend on getting highly skilled candidate.

Enrol With Vision

When we recruit, we focus a lot to ensure that there is a fairly good match of candidate’s skills, experience and talent with the requirements of job. i.e. we ensure we are hiring right skills for the job requirement.

What we generally miss out is matching values, vision, attitude and culture. These aspects are more important as far as retentions as well as performance is concerned. Carefully design your recruitment process to make sure you share your vision, values and culture with candidates and also include assessment of candidates on these aspects. You don’t have to feel helpless and frustrated over employee churn anymore. Implement these strategies and I am sure, you will benefit.

-Milind Bibikar

• Business coach specializing in Manufacturing & Engineering projects businesses

• Co-Founder & MD at Expandus Business Coaching

• Representative of ActionCOACH, World’s No.1 Business Coaching Firm

He specializes in coaching SME business owners of Manufacturing, Engineering & Projects businesses through ‘personalized’ One-To-One business coaching. He has worked with business owners who want to build a 100Cr projects business. Email him on ilindbibikar@actioncoach.com to set up a complimentary Business Diagnostic & Strategy Session in person or online.