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    You are here Home » culture

    Stop Measuring Employee Loyalty By Tenure: 5 Steps to Creating a Boomerang Culture

    Last updated on Jun 1, 2017 by Dan McCarthy · This post may contain affiliate links

    Guest post from Lee Caraher:

    The great lament of so many leaders and managers today is
    that “no one is loyal anymore.” With millions of millennials pegged as “job
    hoppers” who “leave before they even get productive,” older managers are
    increasingly unwilling to put in the effort to help develop and train their
    younger colleagues. The logic goes – “why should I put my effort into helping
    these people when they’re just going to leave me and I’ll have to start all
    over again.”

    Oh, the good old days, when people stayed where you wanted
    them for as long as you wanted them to and retired with a golden watch and some
    balloons.

    Yeah. Those good old days are long gone, if they ever
    existed at all. And not because people changed, but because companies stopped
    honoring the implicit contract that permeated American business: you work hard
    and the company will take care of you. Employees today know that they can’t
    count on a company to take care of them, and that they need to craft their own
    career with building blocks of job experiences that keep them relevant, and
    increasingly valuable. Add to that their desire to be both interested in and
    satisfied with the impact of their work.

    The old loyalty paradigm is dead, and it’s time for us to
    switch from measuring employee loyalty by length of employment, to an entire
    career lifetime regardless of whether a paycheck is involved or not. This is
    the Boomerang Principle: the belief that organizations that allow and encourage
    former employees to return have a strategic advantage over those that don’t.

    Consider these points to help prepare you for this new
    mindset:
    ●   When you hire someone, you know they
    are going to leave you. Instead of worrying about when they’re going to leave,
    focus on helping your employees be as valuable as possible while they’re with you;
    ●    
    It’s unlikely that one organization could offer the
    range of opportunities – skills, positions, locations, terms, or dynamics –
    that every employee will want over the course of their careers. Instead of
    treating former employees as “dead to you,” consider the skills that they will
    gain away from your company and figure out how you can get them to return when
    they are more valuable to you in the future;
    ●    
    With every former employee, you have the opportunity to
    INCREASE your footprint in the business world. Creating an environment and
    relationship that keeps former employees informed and attached to your company
    can pay off in exponential ways after they leave you in terms of potential
    clients, partners and advocates in the industry and community. Better to have
    people proud of their association with you, than actively preferring not to
    recommend your company as an employer or a provider.
    ●    
     When you create a “culture of return”
    you create a “culture to remain.” Environments that are worthy to return to –
    where people are welcomed to return – are generally more positive, more
    high-performing, more productive and more profitable than those that aren’t.
    These types of positive organizations are hard to leave just to leave, and have
    much lower employee turnover rates than those organizations that treat their
    former employees as pariahs.
    And now, how can you create a culture of return? Here are 5
    steps to creating a Boomerang culture.
    1.   
    Kill the counter
    offer:
    Stop countering people with higher salaries when they tell you they
    are leaving. Don’t do it. Instead treat people who are moving on to different
    opportunities well and welcome them to return in the future if the time is
    right. Fellow employees know when a business counters exiting employees, and it
    creates an incredibly negative dynamic and resentment among teams. Stop feeding
    any negativity you can.
    2.   
    Stay connected
    in real, meaningful ways:
    Stay in touch with your former employees. If you
    haven’t done this in a while, make a list of the people who left your company
    in the last 24 months. Over the next six to twelve months, reconnect with all
    of them in some way – from meeting for dinner to connecting on LinkedIn. Show
    interest in where they are and what they’re doing.
    3.   
    Insist on and
    train great managers:
    Make sure your managers are actively involved in
    their team members’ development plans. Reward managers for helping their
    colleagues to succeed and reach their own goals. When organizations are
    demonstrably invested in their employees, people feel more loyalty towards them
    and are more willing to make good things happen in the workplace.
    4.   
    Start a
    company-sponsored alumni program:
    If you can’t create your own online
    platform, start with a private Facebook group with your former employees and
    current team leaders in it. Share company updates, learning opportunities and
    discounts or other opportunities with your alumni. Ask your alumni for their
    recommendations for people to fill open positions; reward every referral with a
    token of appreciation. When you keep a relationship going with your former
    employees, they are more apt to recommend your company as a vendor, partner or
    employer – this shortens recruiting, biz dev and sales cycles by many cycles.
    5.   
    Tout the quality
    of the staff you’ve had:
    You’ve created a great thing here, be proud of
    that. Showcase your company alumni in the alumni network. Post interviews with
    former employees that detail their current positions and lives; ask them to
    comment on how their time with your company prepared them for their current
    jobs. The more you demonstrate that you’re proud that they are proud of their
    time with you, the more valuable you become to your former, current and future,
    employees.
    Thinking about and then putting in place mechanisms that
    help you inspire employees to be loyal to your organization for their entire
    careers – not just their tenure – is a paradigm shifting exercise. By applying
    the Boomerang Principle – the belief that organizations that allow and encourage
    their former employees to return have a strategic advantage over those that
    don’t – your company will increase happiness in the workplace – happiness that
    translates right down to the bottom line.

    Lee Caraher is
    the founder and CEO of Double Forte a national PR and social media agency
    working with beloved brands in the consumer, technology and wine categories.
    Her second book is The Boomerang Principle:Inspiring Lifetime Loyalty From Your Employees
    .
    « Don’t Tolerate Dysfunctional Teams
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