Previously in this blog, we have discussed the backbone of your company. This is the group of employees who are driving sales and customer satisfaction. Generally they are the ones who are in direct contact with your customers or shape your product or service. The better they perform, the higher the sales and the better the quality of your product or service. Executives, administrative support and new employees are never part of the backbone.
The employee turnover in your backbone should be as close to ZERO as possible
Some of you may be thinking, zero employee turnover is unattainable. You may also be thinking some turnover is a good thing and should be expected.
So let’s address those two issues. When employees are working toward being part of the backbone, there will be turnover. You will find employees who you thought fit the criteria and later discovered they did not. These employees will be working their way up your value path and will show bad behavior or marginal results. It will become clear they will not fit in being part of the backbone and will move on. However, when they move into the company backbone group, you will not want them to leave. If you have done a good job of selecting and developing this person, they also will not want to leave.
At one company, we had no turnover in our backbone for the last four or five years I was there. Simply, they did not want to leave and there were no greener pastures to lure them away. This was accomplished by determining the criteria which guaranteed success. We also eliminated unnecessary work obstacles identified by the employees. The employees were able to succeed and attain both professional and personal goals. They saw themselves as the backbone and it was regularly communicated to them how important they were to the success of the organization.
Zero employee turnover is attainable by managing for it
When an employee sees themselves as a vital member of the organization they quickly become engaged. They start looking for ways to be even more productive as they know they are being compensated for value not time served. They are looking for obstacles, bottle necks and value leaks. They are looking for solutions and alternatives to minimize problems and maximize success.
You have your employees right where you want them!!
