From F. John Reh,
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How can I tell if my best employees are getting ready to leave?

Why would they want to leave?

How can I keep them?

In an earlier article, we looked at what it really costs to find and hire new employees. This article looks at how to tell if you're in trouble, and what to do about it

Top 10 Clues Your Best Employees are Leaving

• They start dressing better
• They take lunches at different times
• Their production drops off
• They seem "quiet" or "down"
• They request vacation one day at a time
• They are "sick" more often
• They stop championing their positions
• They stop volunteering
• They get more incoming phone calls than usual
  
  and number 10
  
  
• They ask you for a reference

Why Would They Want To Leave?
Most employees cite "money" as their reason for leaving. In some cases this is true. However, we know that money is a satisfier, not a motivator. As long as an employee receives what they consider adequate compensation, more money won't buy more production. And lack of more money won't drive them away. Many departing employees use money as their excuse for leaving because it is a "safe" answer.

How Can I Keep The Good Ones?
People stay with something until the pain of staying exceeds the expected pain of leaving. Most people who are really good at something have a low 'pain of leaving' because they know they can find something else. The trick to keeping them is to minimize the 'pain of staying'.

The factors that add to the 'pain of staying' are well documented. People who are under appreciated or unchallenged won't stay around long. Here are several authors' points of view on what you can, and should, do to retain employees. (Note: You can return to this list from any of the articles by clicking the "Back" button on your browser.)

Don Grimme lists his Top Ten Tips to Attract, Retain and Motivate Employees.

The TechWordld article Time for business to do more with more takes a different approach. It suggests that the time has come to spend a little of the company's (or industry's) recent profits on the people who made that possible, the employees.

Rik and Janel Villegas point out that while training helps retain employees, Training is not enough. They explain how to follow up the training with coaching to help the employees get the most benefit from the training and increase their likelihood to stay with the company.

Kim McLean asksWhat do Workers Really Want in a Benefit Package? and answers the question by noting that different employee groups value certain benefits more than others and suggesting surveying your employees every few years on their benefits preferences is a way of keeping them and keeping them happy.

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