Employee Retention: Y You Need a Strategy

1
59

Share on LinkedIn

Employee reten­tion has become a com­mon topic in call cen­ters as the econ­omy starts to improve. Accord­ing to a 2011 sur­vey included in an arti­cle writ­ten by Cal­abrio, 70 per­cent of Gen­er­a­tion Y con­tact cen­ter agents are con­tem­plat­ing leav­ing their cur­rent role when the econ­omy improves.

In addi­tion to agents leav­ing for higher pay­ing jobs, Gen Y is moti­vated by bet­ter perks and ben­e­fits and more oppor­tu­ni­ties for advancement.

If you’re not already con­vinced your efforts need to lie in employee reten­tion, con­sider this: the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics reported that employ­ees aged 25–34 stayed on the job 3.1 years on aver­age com­pared to baby boomers who stayed 10 years. Are you pre­pared to retain your top Gen Y talent?

Below are top strate­gies to get employee reten­tion efforts rolling:

Get to Know Gen Y

Every gen­er­a­tion has unique char­ac­ter­is­tics in the way they view the world and how they oper­ate. Below are Gen Y char­ac­ter­is­tics to help you adjust the way you man­age this group:

Gen Y Wants Fre­quent Com­mu­ni­ca­tion: Accord­ing to a sur­vey of Gen Y, 35% want to com­mu­ni­cate with their man­ager sev­eral times a day. The report from this sur­vey says, “They seek man­agers who are will­ing to let them fig­ure out their own strate­gies for get­ting the job done while at the same time being approach­able and avail­able to pro­vide advice, assis­tance, and support.”

Gen Y Needs to Feel Val­ued: Gen Yers are just start­ing their careers and they want to know they have the skills to suc­ceed and that their work mat­ters. This gen­er­a­tion is used to con­stant feed­back, so they will crave it from their manager.

Gen Y Wants Men­tors: Gen Y wants to learn from their man­agers. They want their man­ager to share their knowl­edge. Are there quick tips you can share on a weekly basis?

Employee reten­tion takes get­ting to know your staff.

Appeal to Gen Y Strengths

Now that you’re a lit­tle more famil­iar with Gen Y, uncover strengths you can use to the company’s advan­tage. Accord­ing to an arti­cle from Melissa Kovace­vic, Gen Y employ­ees have high integrity, the abil­ity to pri­or­i­tize and deliver results, and tech­ni­cal skills. How can you make the most of these strengths? What addi­tional tasks can you assign Gen Y employees?

For exam­ple, if an employee exhibits strength in under­stand­ing the soft­ware you use in the call cen­ter, empower him or her to men­tor new employ­ees. This will reduce your work-load train­ing new agents and make cur­rent agents feel like val­ued mem­bers of the company.

Cre­ate a Flex­i­ble Work Environment

The work envi­ron­ment is extremely impor­tant to the morale and pro­duc­tiv­ity of employ­ees. What fac­tors can you adjust to help Gen Y to be suc­cess­ful? Accord­ing to the sur­vey of Gen Y, “Work­place fac­tors that are most impor­tant to Gen Y are work­ing with a man­ager they respect and peo­ple that they enjoy, and strik­ing a bal­ance between per­sonal and work obligations.”

Under­stand­ing these aspects is the first step. The next step is to see what you can do to help employ­ees cre­ate their ideal work envi­ron­ment. Encour­age employ­ees to get to know each other. Try pair­ing two employ­ees to take a lunch break at the same time. This may be an oppor­tu­nity to start a men­tor­ship program.

Offer Com­pany Perks

Many perks come at a min­i­mal cost to a com­pany, but speak vol­umes to employ­ees. What kind of perks would appeal to your Gen Y staff?

“Employee of the Month” – Gen Y likes to feel appre­ci­ated as men­tioned in the “Get to Know Gen Y” sec­tion above. Start an “employee of the month” pro­gram to spot­light top performers.

Tuition Reim­burse­ment – Gen Y looks for oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow and advance their skills. Inform employ­ees about train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties or tuition reim­burse­ment pro­grams. Employ­ees will feel you are invested in them and they will learn new skills to apply to their jobs.

Work­ing Lunches –Offer a free lunch once a month or once a quar­ter, what­ever is fea­si­ble for your com­pany. This gives employ­ees an oppor­tu­nity to social­ize and get to know their co-workers (an attribute that con­tributes to an ideal Gen Y work environment).

If you’re uncer­tain these perks would appeal to Gen Y, offer an anony­mous sur­vey! Give employ­ees an oppor­tu­nity to tell you what perks they want to see offered.

Employee reten­tion is an ini­tia­tive to start imme­di­ately. Your staff wants to feel com­fort­able in their work envi­ron­ment and you want them to stay, so make adjust­ments now to keep your staff engaged. If you’re inter­ested in learn­ing more about employee reten­tion, down­load this free white paper on Best Prac­tices for Reduc­ing Employee Turnover.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

1 COMMENT

  1. I read something the other day that talked about “quiet and informal” recognition and I really identified with it. Companies that take the time to recognize employees in quiet moments and in a informal way have found a more lasting motivation among their employees. I think that it speaks to the fact that people just need to feel that they contribute and if they are recognized in a sincere way, then employees are more apt to respond to it in a sustainable way.

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Please use comments to add value to the discussion. Maximum one link to an educational blog post or article. We will NOT PUBLISH brief comments like "good post," comments that mainly promote links, or comments with links to companies, products, or services.

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here