I DON’T KNOW WHY PEOPLE QUIT!
If you’re like most service companies, this year has been tough. You’ve had to schedule calls 2-3 days out, you may have had to reduce calls, you’ve likely got empty service trucks on your lot and, we’d bet, you’ve hired candidates that you probably wouldn’t have considered acceptable five or ten years ago.
We could bore you with statistics, we could point out multiple reasons, and we could promise you that a number ATS systems or recruiters will solve all your problems. But that wouldn’t be real.
Real is this: Every technician you lose costs you real money and lost opportunity when they walk away. And, if they want “revenge” against real or perceived slights, they can hurt you worse by inducing other employees to follow them to their new employer.
It’s no secret – we teach our clients to sit down with new employees and ask, “Apart from you, who’s the best tech your prior company has? Think they’d be open to a move? You want to call them or should we?”
Retention is a Huge Part of the Cure
As important as recruiting is to success and maximizing your service revenue, retention is a HUGE PART of the CURE! Looking at information available online and at personal experiences with prior companies we’ve worked with, the reality is that the first year of employment is key!
If you can engage with those new hires and get them to a first anniversary, you have a much better chance of keeping them as long-term team members. We’ve seen first year turnover as high as 100%. We’ve heard of a company in Texas that had first year turnover over 400%!
The First Year Experience
So there’s a lot of things you can do to reduce turnover. We can’t cover them all in a short blog – but we’ll start talking about some of them over the next few weeks and months.
First Day
You fill out all sorts of new hire paperwork. You get a quick overview of pay plans, benefits options, company policies. Many times this takes less than two hours. You may or may not get a quick lunch and tour of the building (including introductions to coworkers). By 1:00 pm – or earlier in many cases – you’ve been given keys to a vehicle and direction to load your tools. In most companies by the end of the first day, you’ll have been asked to run a call or two.
First Week
You’ve figured out how to complete paperwork or electronic tickets. Sometimes a coworker shows you, sometimes a manager sits down and provides directions. Sometimes it comes from being told (by said manager) that you’ve done it wrong. This experience is “justified” by the business demands – “Hey, it’s our busiest time of year!” Unfortunately, that’s the justification at any time of year.
First Month
You’ve settled in. You’re doing okay with paperwork, running lots of calls, have figured out (at least a little) how your pay is calculated, and you know the major “players” in the company, managers, HR, payroll, safety, fleet, etc.
But do you feel connected? Do you feel a common purpose with those other techs who run their calls? Do you feel like what you do makes any difference? Do you feel appreciated?
That may be your new employee! And several of your competitors are probably trying to reach them to recruit to their company.
The Risk of Losing Them
What type of relationship have you created with your new team members to make them think, “There’s real potential here – I want to stick around and see how it goes here?” Especially when offered $1-5/hour more!
The first key: Engage with your new hires. Develop a rapport with all your employees! We teach our employees how to approach clients… how to create rapport and build trust. But we aren’t necessarily so good at doing that with our people.
A Simple Step Toward Engagement
This may be overly simple. But you want to start down that road? Do this:
Ask every employee that you’ve hired in the last three months to meet in your office (or a conference room if it’s a large crowd). Better yet, if you got a bunch of new hires schedule them several days in a row in groups of five or less. And ask some open ended questions:
How’s it going?
Do you have any questions, concerns or suggestions about how things work around here? (same rules as brainstorming during the meeting – no judgment, no argument, no “ranking” of ideas)
How can I help you improve the workday for you?
Bonus Thought #1
Bring along donuts, breakfast tacos or sausage biscuits. There’s a dynamic that changes when people share food.
Bonus Thought #2
Follow up with individuals and the questions or comments they raised – THANK THEM for participating!
Final Thoughts
If you’ve made it this far, one of two reactions is likely to have come to mind:
We need to do something – this is worth a try!
I don’t have time for this $h!+!
If it’s the former – no words needed. If it’s the latter – what’s more important than a team that’s invested and can INCREASE their contribution because they are committed?!
