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Sep 30, 2019
Employee retention is one of the biggest and most expensive problems that companies have. If you have an employee leave before you are ready for them to leave, you know the cost of replacing that person is going to be expensive. Employee retention for some roles can be higher than 50 percent in a 12 month period. My special guest today is Gene Hammett, my husband who is a Speaker, Author, and Host of the Podcast "Growth Think Tank".
In this special episode, we look at employee retention in a fun way. We analyze the five types of workers that are hurting your bottom line. Gene and I share specific types of people that will cause a turnover. We talk about why employee retention matters.
Gene Hammett is a Best-Selling Author, Keynote Speaker, Proven Business Consultant and Founder of Growth Think Tank (formerly know as “Leaders in the Trenchesâ€) recognized by Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com for being a top podcast for leaders.
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Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
[00:00:00.060]
- Amanda
Welcome to
the Next Generation Rock stars podcast. If you are trying to figure
out how do you recruit and retain this next generation of rock star
talent while you are in the right place.
[00:00:14.940]
- Amanda
So today's
episode is gonna be a little bit different than what you're used to
seeing from me today. I've partnered with my hubby right here my
hubby, my business partner Gene Hammett.
[00:00:25.590]
- Gene
Well glad
to be here with you. I run a podcast called Growth Think Tank and I
work with the founders and leaders of the INC 5000 companies
growing fast as one percent of companies in the world.
[00:00:39.510]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
So we are going to be taking a look at where our work collides and
that happens to be in the world of employee retention. So this
episode today is talking about the five types of workers who are
hurting your employee retention. So follow along with us as we tell
some comical stories from our own personal work experience or maybe
from some of the companies that we've worked with previously where
we talk about each type of the employees and how it's actually
hurting your employee retention. But in there we're also going to
be offering up a free framework that Gene and I have perfected over
the years through our own work as entrepreneurs but also in working
with other companies.
[00:01:24.360]
- Amanda
And this
framework is called the "Stay Framework" and it is
super simple. It's something that we use to keep employees happy
fulfilled and motivated at work. And let me tell you some of these
things are so easy that you can implement them to day and see major
major results out of your employees because that's all what we
want. We want our employees to be productive. We want them to be
efficient. But we also want them to stay. So sign up to get the
free stay framework and with it we'll be offering up a free
training that we've partnered with a company called Velocity
global.
[00:02:01.950]
- Amanda
Now
velocity global CEO Ben Wright will be on doing this training with
us. And Ben actually runs a PEO company which is a employee
benefits company. And this is global so companies that are small
medium sized that are struggling with those benefit pieces those
are pieces that can trip up any company Ben's company velocity
global will swoop in and help you fix it.
[00:02:26.400]
- Gene
So where do
they get that report?
[00:02:27.540]
- Amanda
So if you
go to AmandaHammett.com/Stay you can
download that report to day. All right here's the
episode.
[00:02:37.260]
- Gene
Employee
retention I really love this conversation because it really is one
of the biggest things going on in our workforce. What do you think
about employee routines.
[00:02:46.200]
- Amanda
This is
something I hear over and over and over again. Anytime I'm at a
conference speaking or if I'm working with employees there are
companies they're always saying how can we keep more of our
employees.
[00:02:58.680]
- Gene
There's a
war for talent. You probably feel it because you want to have the
best workers You want to have the most talented. You want them to
to be a part of the culture and you want to make sure you're very
intentional about creating a kind of work experience that makes it
so that they really love to come to work. But employee retention is
something that a lot of people kind of like it's too fluffy right.
Because it's not something that is on the balance sheet or the
panel. If you had a number on your financials that said exactly
what it's costing you because of employee retention you'd be
surprised and you'd pay a lot more attention to it.
[00:03:37.770]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
The cost of employee retention is staggering. If CFO knew exactly
how much this was costing it would change the way that companies
around the world would operate because right now employee retention
is broken up into so many different buckets whether it's training
or management or recruiting cos it's it's all broken up so it's not
one specific number. But the thing is that actually according to
Gallup they estimate that every single year the cost the American
economy over a trillion dollars just in employee
turnover.
[00:04:16.290]
- Gene
Let me jump
in here because that's a big number. Like a trillion is really big.
But you know let's talk about it from a sense of what is it costing
you right now.
[00:04:25.780]
- Amanda
So sure,
which is the society for Human Resource Management estimates that
it actually costs between one and a half and two times that
person's salary in order to replace them. So that is the recruiting
cost that is the more soft cost. So like the manager training time
getting that person ramped up. But let's be honest a lot of the
industries that I work with they have employees that have been
there 30-40 years. They are that amount of corporate knowledge that
walks out the door. It's going to take years and years and years to
replicate that into a new person. So that to you know two times
their salary I think is easily done.
[00:05:07.640]
- Gene
That's
really for knowledge workers. Like if you had someone that was an
hourly employee it's going to be less but there still is a cost to
to employee return.
[00:05:16.070] -
Amanda
Oh
absolutely. But even in the hourly space you know there are a lot
of situations where you have people that have been there 20, 30, 40
years and so they're taking with them a lot of that knowledge. So
it is an ongoing issue.
[00:05:29.750]
- Gene
I had a
workshop a few weeks ago that you attended and one of the clients
in there talked about losing. Things at twenty five employees in
one month. Yeah. And I said know what do you think that cost you.
He goes I know exactly what it cost me because I had to get
temporary workers. These are hourly paid. And it cost him a quarter
of a million dollars.
[00:05:49.360]
- Amanda
In one
month.
[00:05:50.040]
- Gene
In one
month. So It is costing you a lot of money not really understanding
this employee retention. So that's the reason why we put together
this episode we've come together. You know I focus on a different
set of clients which you've already explained and Amanda has the
corporate side of this. But together we've seen this and we want to
share with you and make this a little bit fun. So we're going to
talk about the five types of workers that are hurting. Your
employee retention. So. You're ready.
[00:06:21.050]
- Amanda
Your
lately. Yeah. That's her. These are some good ones. And we've all
seen each of these. Play out in our own careers. So the first one
is the micro manager. I mean come on we have all seen this time and
time again.
[00:06:36.610]
- Gene
I'll be
honest I've probably been a micromanager from time to time. It's
easy to be a micromanager because if you're an A player if you've
done the work before you know exactly what to do and you can
actually just tell them and that's the easiest quickest thing for
you to do is to tell them the exact steps. Is that
right.
[00:06:59.430]
- Amanda
Right. But
I think a micromanager there's there's more to it. It's standing
over. It's like constantly like in their face. What are you doing
now what are you doing now. And it gets to the point where the
employee can't even do their work because they're so focused on
responding to you or answering to you that they end up having to
spend a lot more time and anxiety invested in just calming you and
dealing with you.
[00:07:23.880]
- Gene
This
reminds me of a story of one of my clients who you know before he
became an entrepreneur was talking about. You know his manager and
this this guy was the traditional micromanager. He was hired to do
some marketing for the company and the the owner of the company
knew a little bit about marketing enough to be dangerous as they
say. But he would second guess everything that that was suggested
as important or the next steps. And he would you know. Talk about
the newsletter and the open rates and why did it happen. And I
remember one specific details he was like well I didn't get it and
it was back and forth back and forth and he's like Did you check
your spam folder.
[00:08:03.540]
- Gene
He goes
It's not in my spam folder. And then all of a. Guess what it was in
the spam folder. So you know there's a lot of different types of
managers out there but the micro manager. Probably is one of the
worse because you think you're doing the right thing but usually
you're not.
[00:08:20.170]
- Amanda
Yeah
absolutely. So you know I do a lot with the younger employees those
under 30 early in career and this is something I hear consistently
over and over again is this micromanager and how it's just
devastating to your career in a lot of ways. I had a young lady
come up to me at a conference recently and she told me about her
manager her former manager. She said that he's basically. Had her
sit down at the end of the day not during the actual workday but at
the end of the day.
[00:08:54.070]
- Amanda
And she had
to write out everything that she did that entire day broken down
into 15 minute increments. Now keep in mind this young lady was not
an hourly employee. She was a salaried employee and he expected
this to come to his email box no earlier than six 15. Now the
office closed at 6:00 but she was not to work on it during the day.
And she had to do this every single day. And if she didn't I mean
there was consequences the following day. And now I don't think
it's going to shock anybody to tell you that she did not last even
a year at this company before she was gone and it all had to do
with this micromanager.
[00:09:35.080]
- Gene
I want to
make sure we connect the dots here because the micromanager you may
thinking you know how is that hurting retention. Well you may have
heard this before. I think it's just so appropriate but people
don't leave jobs they leave managers. Absolutely. And we probably
all had bad managers that we reported to. That caused us to leave
companies. And that is the reason why it's number one in the list.
It is probably one of the most common. And it really is something
that we wanted to kind of draw you into this because some of the
others are gonna be a little bit more maybe even fun to talk about
because you when we came together we had a lot of fun putting all
these together and just for you.
[00:10:18.760]
- Amanda
All right.
So the second one is not a micromanager but a clueless boss. Now I
want to talk about this from my own personal experience. I had a
boss one time and I'm not going to name names. However. Every
single day or every single interaction I had with this person I
would just sit back and ask myself How in the world did you become
a manager. How are you in charge of leading people and not just one
or two. I mean 50 or 60 people and I was flabbergasted daily. You
remember those days.
[00:10:55.670]
- Gene
I do. They
were stressful because you cried a lot. But I I've been through
this too. I mean mine was a little bit different. I've I respected
this manager but the way they showed up had no regard for the
company growing and moving forward. It was just a place for them to
kind of I was more like a hobby than it was anything else and I say
clueless because it really did feel like I'm pushing forward the
business harder than the owner of the business was. And it really.
Really allowed me to reflect on what kind of boss I wanted to be in
this whole thing and I wanted to be the exact opposite.
[00:11:35.380]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
But I think in that situation I mean she actually had personal
shoppers coming in. She had no clue literally what was going on in
the day to day.
[00:11:44.860]
- Gene
She she
said she did but she was just checked out the most of it. You know
it's hard to get that kind of work done in a couple of hours. It
was a small operation. I grew a lot because I was forced to think
self which was good for me because I had that drive but it really
is just as clueless bosses is. The people that you really have no
respect for.
[00:12:06.970]
- Amanda
Yeah.
[00:12:07.270]
- Gene
Is that
fair?
[00:12:07.880]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
But in my case I mean he was smart in a certain way. But he would
ask questions of me and meetings or of anybody and everybody was
just staring at him and you could tell that they were like. Kind of
an idiot here and I felt really bad but at the same time I
eventually just had to start saying hey this is how it is. This is
this is the decisions that we need to be making this is the
direction that we need to be taking. And he actually asked me in
the exit interview if I had listened to you would would you be
leaving. And I said. Probably not.
[00:12:42.150]
- Amanda
At least
not now.
[00:12:43.290]
- Gene
Well I'm
thinking about this right now and we could put this together. We we
talked about stories that could fit along with it and we we picked
two personal stories here because. We thought you could relate to
them but also we we left both those jobs so we quit. And that
really drives into you know you want to make sure you pay attention
to this clueless boss character if you will because it will impact
your employee retention.
[00:13:11.910]
- Amanda
I will
actually say that this particular boss situation that I was talking
about the turnover there was enormous. I mean it was a constant
churn of employees in and out in and out in and out some roles.
Obviously a lot more than others but it was like you you almost got
to the point where you didn't want to invest in getting to know
somebody new because you knew that they'd be gone within you know
six months at the most.
[00:13:39.500]
- Gene
Let's hold
up here for a second because we're talking about these types of
workers that are hurting your employee retention if you want to be
a better manager and you want to really create the kind of
leadership that people admire then you want to have a simple
framework that we've developed over a few years of working with
leaders that will help you increase the employee retention. We call
it the stay framework.
[00:14:00.770]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
And this framework is super easy and it's super easy to implement
and use every single day with your employees because again at the
end of the day you want to keep them. So we have boil this down to
one page one simple page you can just easily implement. So sign up
and get it below.
[00:14:19.820]
- Gene
There is
one thing in there that we have seen that almost every manager is
leaving out. They don't even know to include it. They're actually
opposed to it but the power of this one little thing that's inside
there that takes about five minutes is really a game changer when
it comes to employee retention.
[00:14:37.580]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
I mentioned it when I spoke at a conference recently and it was
just profound to everybody in that audience. So if you want to get
the framework to help you retain your employees be sure to go to
AmandaHammett.com/Stay and download that today. All right. So the
third type of employee that is chilling your retention. It is the
loafer.
[00:15:07.300]
- Gene
The loafer
is the person we all know that tries to seem like they're working.
But they're never really getting anything done.
[00:15:14.380]
- Amanda
Yeah. They
are doing the bare minimum in order to survive in order to continue
to collect that paycheck. And it's really frustrating for everybody
else because they're actually having to pick up the slack because
you know this person didn't get things done on time or they're
wondering around the office drinking coffee and talking to people.
And what are they actually doing. What are they actually
accomplishing. It's fascinating.
[00:15:38.710]
- Gene
Everyone
knows that social butterfly. And they seem to never be really doing
the work that they're supposed to be doing. I don't know how when a
manager sits down with that person that they can actually. You know
not just find them on the spot.
[00:15:52.860]
- Amanda
I think
what it is is a lot of times they're able to hide. They're able to
find themselves into situations with managers who are not having
these. Constant conversations about what's going on. How can we
help you.
[00:16:07.050]
- Gene
Well this
reminds me of a story that I was involved in the company that went
through a merger and you bring over two cultures and they combined
together and that happens from time to time. And in this case this
this founder was talking about you know bringing over a group of
people that just didn't seem to fit and those people were told to
to really operate in a different way than what they were used to.
And it really taught cause a lot of them to just kind of switch off
and so they just collected a paycheck.
[00:16:40.980]
- Gene
They showed
up day in and day out. They were at the meetings they were supposed
to be at. Everything looked from the surface like they were doing
what they're supposed to be doing. But we both know the truth. They
were just loafing around.
[00:16:52.350]
- Amanda
Oh
absolutely. I mean you know I have. Plenty of stories about this.
You know whether it's my own personal work history or dealing with
companies that I've worked with. But one stands out in my mind and
this person wandered around drank coffee checked Facebook
regularly. I mean constantly was updating Facebook or social media
and it was just it was fascinating because everybody knew who this
person was and loved it when they stopped by and chatted for a
minute. But at the end of the day what did this person actually
accomplish. I'm still baffled by that.
[00:17:29.070]
- Gene
So we're
talking about employee retention. I want to be clear you want the
loafer to leave.
[00:17:35.010] -
Amanda
I was so
frustrated with the loafer.
[00:17:39.860]
- Gene
But that's
exactly the reason why you need to be tuned into this because. That
kind of person that loafer is driving others away if you don't have
a high enough standard for the work then others won't take the
whole job very seriously and they'll be looking for a place where
they can can really be a self starter that can really be
appreciated for doing the work and they want to be surrounded by
others that are doing the work.
[00:18:05.310]
- Amanda
Absolutely
I mean this the low four wheel drive away you're eight players.
Absolutely. They can't stand to see this. And so you know a players
want to work with other players not with loafers. Got to lose the
low.
[00:18:22.600]
- Gene
All right
so let's go into number four because it is this is a fun one. We
had to put it in there because it happens from time to time. I
think you've had more experience with this.
[00:18:32.930]
- Amanda
I
have.
[00:18:34.150]
- Gene
But the
fourth type of employee that is killing your employee retention is
the hired. That one person that flies off the handle way too quick.
They they really overexaggerate certain things. And I'll be cleared
here. You want them to leave too. But you also want to make sure
that you're creating a place and employee experience where these
people don't exist.
[00:18:58.870]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
I mean for one in this day and age we need to you know employees
sense of safety needs to come. It's paramount to everything else.
And in certain situations these hotheads can get pretty extreme and
can make you feel unsafe. Now I worked with a certain hothead and
we found ourselves always walking on eggshells around this person
constantly tiptoeing Oh how is he going to react to this. And you
know some situations he would be great. In other situations it
would just explode. One day he actually threw a chair in a
conference room up against the window it bounced back and almost
hit somebody.
[00:19:40.660]
- Amanda
But that
was actually the day that myself and a few other people decided we
were out but cause of this hothead.
[00:19:47.500]
- Gene
The one of
the number one factors of team success is psychological safety.
This comes from the air startle work at Google. It's done with many
times over with companies looking at this. So creating a place
where this hothead doesn't survive doesn't the last is a really
important part of your leadership.
[00:20:07.870]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
And you know it really is up to the leaders to recognize this kind
of behavior and nip it in the bud. Move that person out. This is
not something that you want to continue because other people are.
Are constantly thinking about. I've got to go. I've got to get out
of here. I can't continue to work with this person.
[00:20:30.850]
- Gene
All right.
Number five I think this one's the hardest two to really get your
head around but it is a game changer when you think about this. If
you value your culture then this is the type of person that you
must let go of. Number five is the toxic superstar. Yes. We we all
have probably work with people that have rubbed us the wrong way
but they were good at what they did.
[00:20:57.280]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
[00:20:58.660]
- Gene
I had a
client once where we were sitting around with the CEO and the CEO
of this small company about 30 people and we were talking about you
know give me the name of two people that really give you
frustration as a leader.
[00:21:13.780]
- Gene
Well, two
ladies came up the names came up I won't share the names but one of
them cried all the time. And I get it. Like you don't want to have
these conversations and it seems to me daily that she was crying
and I asked why was she crying. Well that gets us back into number
two which is the toxic superstar in this in their world. She was a
high performer she was. She was in recruiting. She was really able
to do the work of two to three employees.
[00:21:41.470]
- Gene
Which is
impressive. But if it comes at the cost of her being toxic and
driving others away because it was truly what I listed through how
many people had she drink driven away it was like four in the last
like three four months really a very expensive decision to keep
that high performer on.
[00:21:58.900]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
And not only that. Let's be very clear she was specifically named
in exit interviews as this person is the reason I'm
leaving.
[00:22:07.660]
- Gene
I got I
asked details because I was curious about this and there were some
expletives that were discussed about how she showed up. There was
also the fact that she lied to to get work and she would work extra
hours on the weekend to cover this up. This toxic superstar is
seducing in the sense that they are performing at a higher level
than others but it is at the cost of the culture. You as the leader
or a manager has to really make some hard decisions because. It is
hurting your employee retention.
[00:22:40.900]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
And just think about the team or the people in her environment. I
mean they are constantly thinking about I've got to get another
job. I've got to get out of here because you know this is not an
environment that they want to spend eight hours a day and plus.
Every single day.
[00:22:59.830]
- Gene
So these
are the five types of employees that are hurting your employee
retention. We went through this. We want to have fun with you
because you probably got some of these in your workspace right
now.
[00:23:10.760]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
[00:23:11.460]
- Gene
And I want
you to think about this. You. Sit down maybe make a jot a few names
down you know where do they fit in this. And are they really
hurting the employee experience overall. And are they truly costing
people to lead the company.
[00:23:26.410]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
And I think that when you're really honest about this and you
really start thinking about the different people that would fall
into these five categories. It might scare you a little bit.
Honestly.
[00:23:40.770]
- Gene
So you may
be thinking about what do you do with all this because this is not
our traditional episode where we're interviewing people and this is
not your traditional episode where we're giving you the step by
step because what we wanted to let you know this we've created
through a partnership a training about employee retention and it
really is something I'm really proud of. It comes along with the
stay framework that we've mentioned that stay framework will help
you be a better leader tomorrow. You can literally Download it
today and use it in your next conversation and you will see impact
right away.
[00:24:13.630]
- Amanda
Absolutely,
this is something that we have put together through trial and error
over the years working with. Our own company working with other
companies and really seeing what are these managers and leaders
that are the highest performers that have melded together a team
that is just trucking along and is just super efficient and really
seems to just go at it every single day. What are they doing so
what are some of their best practices. So we have pulled them
together and let me tell you some of these are ridiculously easy.
And it is shocking to me every single day when I see leaders and
managers not doing this and then yet they're also complaining I
can't keep my people.
[00:24:58.180]
- Amanda
Well here
is the answer and it is super easy. The Stay framework can be
downloaded at AmandaHammett.com/Stay.
[00:25:06.190]
- Gene
Well that
wraps up this episode really excited to be able to share this work
with you to come together with my beautiful wife. I really have a
lot of respect for what she's done in the corporate world and
really wanted to share something with you because I feel like you
could be the leaders that you really wanted to be by understanding
these types of employees. But more by getting that stay framework
so make sure you go ahead do that.
[00:25:29.350]
- Amanda
Absolutely.
And of course join us for the free training that we will be doing
along with that and we'll be including our partners velocity
global. So thank you again for joining us. And we will see you in
the next episode.
[00:25:41.250]
- Gene
As always
lead with courage.
[00:25:43.510]
- Amanda
Thanks so
much for joining us for this episode of The Next Generation rock
stars where we have discussed all about recruiting and retaining
that next generation of talent. So I'm guessing that you probably
learned a tremendous amount from this week's rock star leader. And
if that is the case don't keep me a secret. Share this episode with
the world but really share it with your friends with your
colleagues because they also need to learn how to recruit and
retain this next generation of talent because these skills are
crucial to business success moving forward.
[00:26:24.470]
- Amanda
Now of
course I want you to keep up to date every single week as we are
dropping each and every episode. So be sure to subscribe to your
favorite podcast platform of your choice and you will see the next
generation rock stars show up just for you.
Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
The post The 5 Types of Workers Hurting Your Employee Retention appeared first on Amanda Hammett | The Millennial Translator.