Do you need the recipe which will solve your employee turnover?
When you bake a cake every ingredient serves a purpose, and every ingredient has to be in perfect balance for the cake to turn out right. Bake a cake someday but if the recipe asks for a pinch of salt – put in three pinches and let me know how it works out. Trust me - you will not like the result.
Business Owners, CEOs, and General Managers routinely ask how I am able to significantly reduce employee turnover. They are looking for the Magic Bullet which I have spoken about in an earlier article. They are thinking in terms of a one shot – “one and done” solution. A good analogy is above, the cake, precisely made, per the recipe. To further the analogy, you have to ask what kind of cake are we making? Is it going to be chocolate, Italian Wedding or your personal favorite whatever that might be? Each recipe is different for each type of cake. In addition, how big is the cake is going to be? The “recipe”, which is your strategies, plans and processes, will be formulated to solve the specific employee turnover ISSUES your organization is having. Don’t miss that point – you have issues with an “s”. That point alone leads you to a recipe not a magic bullet.
There are a couple of bakeries here in Oklahoma City which I go to and they sell cakes, pies and other yummy things by the slice all the way up to a full cake or pie. It is what they do. It does not matter what I buy there it will always be good. If I were to go to them and ask for a custom cake, maybe a slight variation, I have no doubt it would be great. Baking is not one of my strengths. I have never baked a cake and have no immediate plans to. My skills and experiences are in another area.
As the VP of Human Resources for four different companies, in four different states, and four different industries the recipe for solving each of their employee turnover problems was widely different. The root problems, organizational structure and culture, demographics, organizational goals, and innumerable other criteria were different. What the organizations were doing well and not so well were always different. What needed to be enhanced, tweaked, completely overhauled and created from scratch were always different. My job is to create the recipe and help with the process. Each time I have built a recipe which has reduced employee turnover dramatically.
What kind of cake would you like me to bake you?
