Keeping your best employees is not easy in a present job market that is full of increased opportunity and new technologies. As you may have already seen, losing your key players can be very costly to your bottom line. The key to retention, however, is not money. Study after study for decades has verified this repeatedly in many different economy situations. Retaining your best employees requires ongoing communication and timely feedback. It starts with a plan to understand each employee's personal needs.

Employers must ask:

• Are all employee needs being met?
• What needs have been added or taken away?

One way to answer these questions is to implement a minimum of semi-annual Performance Reviews. These reviews allow you to assess the underlying dreams, values, and interests of each employee, and to make sure an effort is being made to understand and meet them.

There are ultimately 5 basic reasons why an employee may look for a new opportunity. Each individual has different motivating factors that would rank these reasons differently. Knowing what drives your best performers can assist you greatly in trying to avoid their looking elsewhere.

"Five Principle Reasons People Change Jobs"
by The Herman Group

1. "It doesn't feel good around here." This is a corporate culture issue in most cases. Workers are also concerned with the company's reputation; the physical conditions of comfort, convenience, and safety, and the clarity of mission."
2. "They wouldn't miss me if I were gone." Even though leaders do value employees, they don't tell them often enough. If people don't feel important, they're not motivated to stay. No one wants to be a commodity, easily replaced by someone off the street. If they are regarded as expendable, they'll leave for a position where they're appreciated.
3. "I don't get the support I need to get my job done." Contrary to opinions heard all-too-often from management, people really do want to do a good job. When they're frustrated by too many rules, red tape, or incompetent supervisors or co-workers, people look for other opportunities.
4. "There's no opportunity for advancement." No, we're not talking about promotions, although many deserving people would like to move up. The issue here is learning. People want to learn, to sharpen their skills and pick-up new ones. They want to improve their capacity to perform a wide variety of jobs. Call it career security. The desire is for training and development. If workers can't find the growth opportunities with one company, they'll seek another employer where they can learn.
5. "Compensation is the last reason most people leave." That's a brash statement, but it's true. Workers want fair compensation, but the first four aspects must be strong. If they're not, but money's high, you'll hear people say "you can't pay me enough to stay here."

The key to retention is having your finger on the pulse of the organization as a whole, as well as on each individual employee. Come up with innovative ways to communicate with your employees. For example, conduct anonymous on-line employee satisfaction surveys, or implement skip level sessions where each employee meets with their "boss's boss". Another fun example is to provide a very informal dinner/lunch once a month/quarter that represents a particular company goal. If the goal was met, the employees could eat steak; if the goal was not met, they could only eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Not only does this activity allow everyone to get a feel for how the company is meeting their monthly targets, but the informality of the lunch/dinner encourages communication and interaction with management.

Are you going to be able to make everyone happy? Unfortunately, it isn't feasible to focus on making each individual employee happy. However, the major key in effectively managing your employees is to know what motivates them. Do not wait! Implement an effective plan today that can provide essential employee feedback within your organization.