The Ultimate Guide to Retaining Talent and Reducing Turnover

Picture this. You've just hired a bright, promising individual. You've invested time, energy, and resources to bring them on board and make sure that they're safe and productive. You're feeling optimistic about what they'll bring to your team and how the future looks. But in a flash, they're gone, leaving behind a trail of Unfulfilled promises and a gap that is so hard to fill. Do you hear the violins? Have you ever felt that pang of disappointment? That cycle of hope and loss and hope and loss? The whole revolving door of talent that never seems to stop? Well, today that's what we're talking about on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode! This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs develop new skills to help them create the jaw-dropping, show-stopping experience that their customers and of course, their employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. I am so glad that you are here.

Hi Marc!

this conversation, particularly because our expert is so fantastic. My guest for this episode is the workforce thought leader, Kara Soletto. Today, we are going to be delving deep into one of the probably the most pressing challenges businesses have faced in the modern age. And that is employee turnover. We will uncover how to keep staff longer and tackle the costly problem of excessive unnecessary Employee turnover. My one ask is that if you do know somebody who could use the information, please share a link to this episode. It's really important that we share information that we have because knowledge is power but only if we share it. So, please go ahead and share the episode. You know, every business operator or manager knows the sting of seeing a promising employee walk out of the door and walk out of the door way too soon. The challenges of the modern workforce have transformed. And with it, the rules of retention have changed. Gone are the days when a decent paycheck was the only anchor. Today, employees seek more and understanding what that more is, is absolutely crucial to our businesses. So that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, have you yourself ever left a job sooner than expected? If so, what was the primary reason for it? Was it the workplace culture? Was it lack of growth opportunities, management, or something completely different? I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. Your insights will really enrich our discussion and help business leaders understand and address the core issues. So, feel free to share a link to this episode. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership on social media, your favorite social media platform, and be part of this conversation. I know that we could have some really in-depth experiences laid out so people can learn from what you have experienced yourself. Have you ever wished for a magic magnet to keep your employees from constantly drifting away? And no, no, I don't mean like a ball and chain chaining them to the wall. That doesn't count. My guest today just might be the next best thing. Dubbed a game changer by Workforce Magazine and recognized as one of the top 10 company culture experts to watch by Recruiter.com, Kara Soletto is the wizardess of workplace retention. I was trying to come up with all sorts of W alliterations. She is the author of Staying Power: Why Your Employees Leave and How to Keep Them Longer and rocks the title of Chief Retention Officer at her company Magnet Culture. Kara, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Thanks for having me, Marc. Great to be here.

I love it. Before we get too deep into today's topic, could you just tell us a little bit about how you serve your customers?

Absolutely. So, the first touch point that most people see us is as we keynote at conferences. So, I'm always staying on top of the workforce. What's going on? State of the workforce, the labor market, things like that. That. So, I do a lot of speaking at industry and corporate conferences. And then folks bring us in usually to do some training programs for their leaders and shift the mindset of those managers to better understand today's new workforce. And we help equip those managers to become a retention champion for their team. And then we also have assessments and videos and other training tools. But a lot of times folks are seeing us through our speaking and training offerings.

Love it! I think maybe it might be important maybe if we start out by defining unnecessary turnover. It's a phrase I used in my opening. What is unnecessary turnover and how does it differentiate from kind of the expected workforce fluctuations like normal attrition?

Sure. So, some turnover is good, Marc. Oh, I know. We don't want to have everybody stay forever because sometimes the rollout You know, outlives the person even, or that skill set needs to evolve. Sometimes the folks, their mindset doesn't shift along with the business needs and things like that. And so, we don't expect people to stay at any job forever. However, we do believe that that revolving door is just spinning way too fast. So, we want to help companies keep the people that they really want and need longer than just 30, 60, 90 days. Or maybe you used to keep people 5 or 10 years and they're only staying 2 to 3 years now. So, whatever that previous tenure was where people stayed, probably not going to ever get back to that because we don't— most organizations offer long-term benefits and really enough benefits to keep folks. But we don't want it to be the shortest term possible either.

Right.

So, we're going to work together to find some new middle ground and some new realistic time frames of when we think people should come and go.

Love it! Obviously, our reality has changed. I mean, COVID played a huge role in how people view work now. But what factors have you seen that lead to kind of this shift in today's workforce mindset compared to previous workplace generations even?

Yeah. So, it's funny that you start— you say that word generations because I happen to be one of the oldest US-based millennials. I was born in 1981. You might notice my purple hair here. And so, I started my business 11 years ago as a generational expert helping companies understand those generational dynamics in the workplace and what happened between the boomer and Xer to Y and Z, you know, whatever you want to call them and whatever birth year matters to you for those buckets, we do have differences. And it's not necessarily about the birth year as much as it is just about the mindset and how folks were raised differently in those different generations. And so, that's one piece of the puzzle is understanding one size does not fit all. And really understanding that evolution of the workforce And how the needs have changed. So, for example, a lot of organizations—they have cut leadership training over the years, and that is now coming back to bite them because they've promoted people or hired people into those leadership positions without having given them the tools to be successful. Then the staff quit, and they say, "Why is everyone quitting?" Well, because your manager is rude, or your manager doesn't have emotional intelligence, or is playing favorites, or just can't communicate or resolve. the conflict in an effective way. You know, with the generational differences, a lot of managers will say, well, if I try to reprimand them for breaking a rule, then they just quit. So managers have to be equipped with the tools to handle that different mindset and different mindsets across the spectrum on their team. They might have some more old soul or traditional-type mindsets, and then some very new, very different mindsets And those folks have to work together.

Yeah, it's so interesting you mentioned the thing about the training because aside from the fact that the businesses evolve, people within our businesses will evolve as well. Their needs will change. Questions that they want answered and that sort of thing. How they feel and how they portray themselves within the business will change as well. So, we need to be able to cater to that. But then, I love that you brought in this thing about the the disease of cutting training when, especially when budgets get a little tighter. It's like, okay, the first thing we're going to cut, let's cut the training. And leadership training happening before people are leaders is probably a really magical thing to do.

Yes.

Because it not only gives you an insight into the different personalities taking the quote-unquote leadership training. But then, it gives them the skills before they ever step into that role.

Right. Absolutely. Yeah, there's not only the lack of training, but another thing that got cut, Marc, was onboarding. Like, you know, there's the leadership training and then there's the new hire training. And the onboarding piece, I see so many organizations just throwing workers out on the floor quickly without anything besides the compliance training. All they care about is check the box, check the box, make sure they took the safety videos or the, you know, whatever we require as a company or as an industry, and then just get them out there. Get them on the floor, get them out on the job, give them their computer, whatever the role is. And that is setting a lot of the new hires up. Not that you're setting them up to fail, but that's how they feel. They think, well, you haven't trained me properly. I don't even know what I'm doing. And I know here in the States, it has been an evolution of workers being able to figure it out. Years ago, there were lots and lots of people who were able to figure it out. Even if you threw them to the wolves, you taught them the sink-or-swim model, and you just threw them into the job, the older generations would say, oh, I don't know what I'm doing, but I guess I'll figure it out. And what we figured out, we always look into kind of the backstory of these evolution changes within the workforce. And we figured out that the older generations were given more responsibility as young children. Right. So, for example, we had latchkey kids who came home after school by themselves, and they would have to make their own snack on the stove. Maybe they had to do their own homework before Google. They had to really just take care of themselves and don't burn the house down, and maybe get some chores done before mom and dad get home. And then, in the '80s and '90s, which I again was born in the '80s, in the '80s and '90s, we started to. Hear more about these national tragedies of, you know, something happening to a kid in their own front yard. And that made the national news. So our parenting style switched to this stranger danger, you know, we've got to get after-school programs for kids, and they can't come home by themselves. And so the reason I explained that is because I was of that generation who had the after-school program or went to a neighbor's house where there were parents, you know, to watch me until my parents got home. And that, that kind of stole the opportunity from me to figure it out.

Hmm.

I wasn't put in a position at 8, 10, 12, even 14 years old. I wasn't put in a position to figure it out, my own homework, my own chores, whatever I wanted to eat for a snack. I was able to ask a parent. And so now we see this huge lack of critical thinking and problem solving in the younger workforce today. And the employers and managers just roll their eyes and say, oh, they're just so lazy and they can't figure it out and they don't know how to think for themselves. When you have to tie it back to what happened, what happened when they were being raised and when they were starting their careers that created this skill gap. And then how do we fill that gap? Because of course, we need folks to be more critical thinkers and better problem solvers. But that That just didn't happen with a lot of the younger workers.

Yeah. So, it brings up an interesting dilemma because I'm the— you're the last of the Millennials, did you say? Or the first?

I'm the very first of the Millennials.

The very first.

So, I'm the very last of the Baby Boomers. So, a lot of my peers have expectations on how people are supposed to perform. And And what I'm seeing is I'm seeing a lot of— it's really about you're blowing out expectations because people, we have different expectations of what performers are supposed to be like. The performers themselves have different expectations on what they want from their employers or from their trainers and this sort of thing. How do we gain some clarity there?

Oh my gosh! I'm so glad you brought that up because I need everyone to hear this one thing, if nothing else, from this podcast. Other people cannot read your mind. They don't know how you were raised or how it's always been done. And so, we as leaders have to communicate the expectations. And at my first job, for example, it was a desk job with, you know, 10 employees in a carpeted office. And I would just kick off my cute little high heels and walk to the copier barefoot at 3 o'clock. Oh my gosh! Because nobody told me I had to keep my shoes on all day. And yet there were other employees who would judge me saying, well, that's ridiculous. Who doesn't know that, Marc? Right? They'd go around telling everybody but me how ridiculous and immature I was. And it wasn't until someone actually came to me, one of my older kind peers, she came to me and said, Kara, People would notice the great work you're doing even more if you kept your shoes on all day. And so after that day, I kept my shoes on. I had no idea that that was a big deal because it got vacuumed every night. It wasn't a dirty office or anything. And so you just have to communicate. And unfortunately, instead of communicating, most people that I see who face those challenges, they just judge the other people. And they say, well, she should know better. I shouldn't have to tell her that. Who raised her? You know, or my favorite phrase of judgment. Are you ready? That's just common sense. Who doesn't know that, Mark? Right. And the problem is, you know, you can say whatever you want about common sense. But the reality is nobody, nobody communicates Those unwritten expectations. And so, you have to bridge that gap as a leader. You have to step in and say, oh, I don't think we told her that. And so, maybe we need to communicate. If we want to get the behavior or the attitude or the work the way that we want it, then we're going to have to communicate those expectations much more clearly than we thought we were.

Yeah, and I really do think that we have to, as leaders, we have to adopt the virtue of grace, I think, a lot of times to understand that everybody is different. And the minute that we come across like, they should know better. This is common sense. Anytime we kind of do that blaming thing, we should be looking at ourselves to say, you know what? Maybe we just didn't outline our expectations.

Absolutely.

So, it's really interesting. I just want to take a step back for a second because I do know that when I've gone into businesses, I know that what people see are the symptoms. They're seeing that Work is not getting done. We're losing people. They're blaming everything except what's actually going on. Are there some red flags that business operators and managers should look out for that may suggest that they have a cultural issue that we're talking about today?

Yeah, I think one of the biggest business issues that I'm seeing today, and you need to watch for these red flags, is that we have Cut out too much management. And what I mean is we're trying to be lean and we're trying to be really, you know, efficient. And I love efficiency. I'm all about processes and efficiency, you know, in any way we can. But there is a cost when you go too far and then there's no wiggle room. So, as a business leader, think about this. If you know you're going to have some turnover, okay, because you probably can't keep people forever and that's fine. But let's say you're going to lose people after even, even if you're lucky enough to say 3 to 5 years. Well, they're still going to leave after 3 to 5 years. So, are you prepared for that transition? And one of the new messages that I've been teaching companies is about this idea of operationalizing the unavoidable turnover. So, whether that's the 2 to 3-year mark that you're probably going to lose folks or that 30, 60, 90-day situation with some new hires. Wherever it is that people are escaping from the organization, pinpoint that timeframe and figure out how can we overcome that hurdle. Whether it's an onboarding hurdle or maybe it's a lack of growth opportunities. For people who have been there a while and they feel stuck, maybe they need mentorship or more education or networking. Or maybe at the beginning, it was a lack of training or lack of team building. They don't feel like they know anybody because they were just thrown into that job, and they don't even know people's names or who's who, and different things like that. So there's different reasons for why people quit at different times, and so operationalizing that turnover is a big piece of it. Which ties back to where I started here, which is we need more managers. We need, if you recall back in the day, we had assistant managers.

Yeah.

And a lot of those are gone now because we've tried to flatten the hierarchy and make ourselves more lean. But the problem is if you have unavoidable turnover that's going to happen no matter how great of a company you are, then we have to plan for that turnover, which means you need somebody who has the capacity to recruit and select and onboard and train and mentor those new folks. And that, that shouldn't be a burden on the business. When somebody gives their notice or leaves the company, you shouldn't just melt down and say, no, we were already drowning. I can't lose another person now. Because if you were already drowning, then you didn't even have the wiggle room To begin with. You were too lean and too tight with everything. And of course, we want to protect our profit margins. I'm a business owner. I understand that sometimes people say, well, where's that money going to come from, Kara? Or how am I supposed to do that and still turn a profit? Well, that's our job as a business owner is how do we create a sustainable staffing situation that will deliver the best quality of products and services to our clients And still make that profit. If our labor keeps going up or we still see this revolving door, we're losing that profit anyway. So, why don't we invest properly in it and then we can kind of see a more sustainable business model that will be profitable over time.

Yeah, bringing new people on board or bringing middle managers in or bringing shift leads in, this kind of stuff sounds counterintuitive to financial well-being. But really, that was my point because it's counterintuitive. It's like, oh, it's just more labor. And so, what I do see when people do do this, the other thing I'm seeing is I'm seeing a lot of people advertising now for hands-on managers.

Yes.

So, we want you in charge of a department. But we want you to be an active participant in the department, actually doing the work. And it's like, well then, if they're busy doing that work, at what point are they doing the mentorship, the coaching, the long-term onboarding? Like I believe we have to drop the phrase onboarding. I've coined the phrase forever boarding.

I love that!

To make sure that it's a process that doesn't end.

Yes, yeah. We teach that our, to your point, our onboarding should be months Long, if not forever long. Absolutely. So, yeah, you make a really good point. And, and I was, I was like taking a breath. Kara, calm down, calm down. Because when you said like working managers, some companies call them hiring managers, which means when you lose people, you have to hire your own people and HR doesn't help you. They just, you know, you just have to post the jobs and select and onboard your own people.

Zero training.

Yes, yes. And zero time, right? They don't have time because they have another job to do, Marc. Hello.

Yeah.

So, yes, companies, that is a red flag. If you have— it's okay to have a manager who has some working responsibility and productivity metrics. Absolutely. But the word manager should tell you that a lot of their job should be spent managing The other people. And sometimes, you know, of course, there's project management too. So, you could argue, well, they're managing the project. But then, who's managing the people? Because that is 2 different things. Managing a project is your work breakdown structure and your Gantt charts and, you know, your deadlines and all of that. That's managing the project. You still need someone to manage the people and to do that mentoring and training and even just I mean, the importance of chitchat and team building and camaraderie and trust. We're seeing a ton of companies that don't have any trust because they haven't done any team building. So, no wonder nobody trusts each other is they don't even know each other. So, that is just so, so important that we make sure not to overload managers. Also, they're easy to overload because sometimes we put them on salary and just keep giving stuff. And give bonuses.

And we'll give you bonuses.

Yes, absolutely. But a lot of the managers now are saying enough is enough. And they're not going to put up with this anymore of just the company piling and piling and piling all of that onto their plates. That, my friends, is not sustainable. It is absolutely not sustainable.

Yeah, I'd really love to get into some actual steps that we can take to stem the tidal wave of resignations. And we'll get to that. Right after this.

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Welcome back! I am speaking with the author of Staying Power: Why Your Employees Leave and How to Keep Them Longer, Cara Sileto. Cara, can you give people a little bit of an insight about your book? Let's talk a little bit about what the book covers. Who is it for? What can they expect if they pick up a copy?

Absolutely. So, it starts with kind of what has happened with the workforce. Why is it so hard to get and keep people today? We explain 2 different sides of our workforce. One side we call the trees, the deep-rooted folks who are not as much of a flight risk to the organization versus the other side of the workforce, which is more of that revolving door that's coming and going. So, giving strategies around just treating those 2 different types of employees differently and really looking at the retention flight risk in a different way. Then, I spend a couple chapters walking through the evolution of the workforce because we have come a long way from because I said so and I shouldn't have to thank you for showing up. That's why you get a paycheck. That worked years ago but not so much anymore. So, we walk through kind of what happened with the changes in the workforce mindset. And then, we lay out the magnet, M-A-G-N-E-T, 6-part framework for retention of these are the areas of the business that you really have to focus on and improve if you want to keep the talent you can't afford to lose.

Love it! It sounds so valuable. And I encourage everybody, the link is in the show notes. Go ahead and pick up a copy because I think this will— I love the M.A.G.N.E.T. framework as well. Anything that makes it super easy, I think is easy to follow. But can we talk a little bit about the first steps organizations need to take to start this idea of they recognize that turnover is a huge issue. They haven't maybe been able to pinpoint the reason for it. But what's some of the first steps that they need to do to get going?

Yeah, so the first thing I mentioned, those 2 different groups, the trees that are deep-rooted and then the revolving door side. The first thing is we need to look at the calculations of turnover differently. Because if you are just calculating an annual turnover percentage, let's say we have 35% turnover at our company annually. Well, that is quite skewed based on how many trees you have in your organization. Because if you have, just for easy math, if you have 100 staff and you've got 35% turnover, but let's say 50% of your people are trees, then that's a really fast revolving door, you know, of the other people that just keep coming and going. Versus if you only have 10% trees, then maybe that revolving door is Spinning, but it's not quite as fast. So, we recommend that people actually take the trees out of the equation. The people who have been at your company for a long time, the people who are not as much of a flight risk to walk out the door. Sometimes because they love it there. And sometimes it's because they have golden handcuffs. You know, they can't leave, right? And so, no matter what the reason of those trees, We recommend that you take that out of your equation at first. And that's going to give you a much better understanding of when people are actually quitting and possibly why they're quitting. In fact, we made a 2-page list of why people leave when because it's different reasons at different times. It's not a one-size-fits-all. And so, I think just having a very realistic conversation with your leadership team about The numbers, what do they actually mean? How can we focus and pinpoint in on where the turnover is happening? Don't try to get people to do what we want them to do or to think like we think. But how can we get our leadership team to think like the new hires and to really think about— I have to ask you, how attractive Is your company to work for? You know, how flexible are you? How well do you pay? How great are your managers? How well trained are the managers? How well are you training the new hires coming in? How much opportunity for advancement is there? I mean, I could go on and on and on. And a lot of folks, if they're honest about those answers, they say, well, we've got room for improvement. And yet they're the ones saying, why is everybody quitting? Nobody wants to work anymore. When in reality, they just don't want to work for low pay, non-trained bosses, no training. They don't want to work in those kinds of environments. So, we have to look at that.

And it's interesting because there are so many different kinds of resources that we can use as employers. I mean, check out Glassdoor. What are people saying about your business on Glassdoor? I mean, when I train interviewees, I tell them, go to Glassdoor. Arm yourself with questions about why their turnover is so high. Or when somebody says management is really bad, you can go into the interview and actually say, so what are you doing to train your managers?

Yes, yeah.

Right? But these are— yeah.

It's not rocket science, Marc. It's really not.

It really truly isn't. Yeah.

And a lot of it just comes down to the leaders are just too busy to solve the problem. They are too busy to be great managers and to be great communicators, first of all. And they're too easy to step back and really look at the problem. And it's easy to blame when we just say, oh, no one wants to work, or people are lazy or entitled. It's pretty easy to just say that's it. When in fact, a lot of the organizations I talk to, they have not evolved with the workforce.

Yeah.

And so, they've not remained a place that is attractive to today's new workforce. And even if you can't offer flexibility, for example, Some, you know, some of my clients are manufacturing or healthcare, hands-on type of companies.

Hospitality.

Right, absolutely. Any type of, any type of on-site job might tell me, well, Carol, we can't let people work from home or we can't give them flexibility because these are the shift times. Okay, well, that's fine. But have you reviewed the shift times? And are you offering 8-hour, 12-hour, 10-hour, 4-hour, 6-hour, you know? And I'm not saying you have to do all of that, but have Have you talked to the workforce? Do you even know what time the— if you're in a large city, like what time do the buses or the subways and the mass transit, what time does that land near your location?

Daycare opening. Daycare pickup.

That's it. Daycare. Yeah. I think it's funny that someone, they will have like a 7 to 7 shift. And yet the daycare down the street is open 6 to 6. And I say, Do you understand that no one can use that childcare resource that's right around the corner because they're not open the right hours? You know, and you do have some say on that. The organizations can be more flexible on their time or go to the daycare and have a conversation about it and say, could you change your hours to meet our needs? If, you know, if it's a problem of we have to stay on the schedule we're on. But I just, I love helping companies be more creative in their scheduling, their flexibility, and even the advancement. They'll say, well, we're a small company. There is no opportunity for advancement here. We're just all a one-man department. Like, oh my gosh, there's so much opportunity there to learn and grow. And just don't keep people's job descriptions the same for too long, even if that means, you know, shuffling things, cross-training. But we got to get creative. That's the key.

It really does sound like we have to get out of the Industrial Age mentality of how we used to run our businesses, right? It's interesting about the statistics and the stats of labor turnover because I've been in organizations where they hang their shingle on their labor turnover definition to your point. And they'll turn around and say, oh, we're doing so great. But our turnover is only 10%. And then, but when you actually sit down, it becomes this big ego thing, right? And it's like, congratulations, John, you get a bonus because your turnover rate's under 20%. But when you take a look at who's turning over, it's all these entry-level positions that people are constantly struggling to hire, which unfortunately also is the front-facing employees of the company.

And the future. Of the company. Oh, absolutely. That's a given. Yeah, but you're spot on. That's absolutely right. Yeah.

Yeah, it's really interesting. So, I mean, obviously we talked about training before. How important is ongoing training for managers tailored to specifically address retention issues? Because I don't see that even for the people doing leadership training. I don't see that this has become a focus yet?

Right. So, there's 2 different pieces. One is the retention-specific or new workforce-specific training. So, our generational class, for example, or the Staying Power class that's based on my book. Those are the most requested classes and programs. In fact, we have a 2-day retreat that follows all the way through the Staying Power book because first, you have to shift the mindset of the managers. You have to make sure that they're not thinking in the same way we did back in the late 1900s and are not so set in their ways that nobody wants to work for them anymore. So, first, you've got to do this mindset-shifting training, which is helping them understand that evolution and why it's even in their best interest to evolve with the workforce. And then the second set is the skill building. So, that's where we built out our Leadership Essentials training classes, which are communication, emotional intelligence, understanding different styles, team building, giving feedback. You know, I mean, it's those skill building type things, which may seem kind of commoditized, like, oh, every training company does communication, you know, and team building or whatnot, conflict resolution. But we try to spin every one of our even skill-building classes back to because this is the new workforce. So, for example, in our feedback class, we explain how it used to be no news is good news. If your boss doesn't call you into their office, you're doing just fine, right? Yeah, thumbs up. Where today, if you look at the other end of the spectrum, If the new workforce says, if my boss doesn't talk to me for a week, oh, well, she hates me and she's probably going to fire me. Or, I'm just not even appreciated around here. They don't even notice the work I'm doing and I'm going to quit. And you have to understand that evolution. It didn't just change overnight. And of course, a lot of people are somewhere in the middle on that spectrum. But a good manager has to understand that shift. And know which of their people are which way. Just like, you know, you don't praise introverts the same way you praise extroverts. That's another spectrum and a different skill set that managers have to have. So, in the training, you need both the mindset shifting to get them to just think differently about retention and about the workforce and that relationship between the employer and employee. But then also, you need the skill building, which is the actual tactics and tools that you see a lot more of that training going on to your point earlier, Marc, than you do the mindset shift. But we try to cover both. And I really wish more companies would take that leap.

Fantastic! This is so thrilling. And I imagine that people tuning in are biting at the bit to figure out how they can get in touch with you. How can people reach out to you if they want to use your services?

Absolutely. So, LinkedIn is one of the best ways to find me. I'm the only Kara Soleto on the planet. So, I'm easy to find. And of course, our company is magnetculture.com and my keynote website is karasoleto.com.

Lovely. And so, if you're planning a leadership retreat or leadership training or conference, check the show notes. Her contact information is down there. You mentioned you have a framework built around the word magnet. Can we talk a little bit about some of the actionable strategies that people can implement to help bridge what's going on? Once they have their staff, how do they keep them?

Yeah, absolutely. So, we've actually talked about several of them, just not in the MAGNET framework. So yeah, the management effectiveness is first. So, that is train your managers. Put a leadership development program in place. Attraction and recruiting is really analyzing how attractive are we and looking internally about that employer brand. And what are people saying out on the streets about us? The G is guidance upon entry. So, that is doing the forever boarding, as he called it, and really maximizing the time you have with those new hires to get them well-trained. The N is new staffing models. So, that's about flexibility, scheduling, opportunities for advancement. Just how do you staff your team is that piece. Empowering champions is about putting in place a retention task force and making sure that you have a group of people or even hiring one specific person to really champion your retention efforts. And then T is trust through transparency. So, becoming a much more transparent leader and organization. You don't have to share everything. But as far as that spectrum goes of old school versus new school, you definitely want to be more transparent than probably in the past because your staff want to know. They want to know you. They want to know what's going on. They want to know why decisions were made. Why is the policy like that? You know, they want to know more. And we're seeing that the more transparent a leader can be with their people, the more trust they can build in that process.

Yep. So it can be, why exactly do I have to wear shoes when it's carpeted and it's a nice day and my shoes hurt my feet?

That's it. That's it. You got to explain what's in it for them as well, kind of spin it for coaching and say, here's why you need to keep your shoes on, Kara.

Pick out the mousetrap and say, here's why.

There it is.

So, I'd like to talk a little bit about some cautionaries as people try to jump onto this bandwagon to create this cultural shift in their business. And we'll get to the cautionaries right after this.

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We are having a phenomenal discussion about employee retention with the woman who has written the book on it, Staying Power: Why Your Employees Leave and How to Keep Them Longer. And we went into a little bit about that. So, I'm thrilled. I do think that this is kind of the bible that organizations need to try to figure this out. So, do pick up a copy. The link is in the show notes. You know, a lot of what we've been talking about is we started with the word expectation. So, we talked about how leaders should be able to voice their expectations. But how do we do it in such a way that we communicate expectations and ensure clarity and alignment within the teams because there are so many different generations? Do you have any cool tools around that?

Well, I don't know how cool it is. But where we start is listening. You know, I know that's totally 101. But I mentioned earlier how busy all of these managers are. And I know you are watching right now, you're probably multitasking because you're so busy. You don't have time to just stop and do nothing but watch a podcast. You have to watch a podcast and do other things at the same time. So, I know that we are really, really busy. And I encourage leaders to stop and to talk to their people. And listen. In fact, we say, go on a listening tour. And do not confuse that with a defend yourself tour. Because when your staff tell you what is wrong or worrisome or what they would change if they had a magic wand, a lot of times that leader wants to say, well, I'm working on that. But, but, but, you know, there's other things going on that are a higher priority. And so, just go put yourself in their shoes. Just listen to your people. And try to glean what you can, not just through an employee survey. Those are great, but that's not the be-all end-all. You also have to just go have conversations and try to avoid what I call the drive-by check-ins, which is, hey Marc, how's your first week going? Yeah, everything good? All right, we'll see ya. I gotta head to this meeting, but hey, you holler if you need me. And I'm gonna tell you right now, Well, that new hire is not going to holler if they need you because you look too busy and they don't want to bother you. So, I think one of the keys right now is to stop and listen to your folks and talk to them because you will learn so much about what they're looking for. What do they need? What do they want? And instead of always talking about their performance, just flip it and say, how can I support you better? What do you need from me as your leader to better do your job or to make the company and the services better for our customers? How can I help?

You've just hit a whole swath of different kinds of virtues that are required for the leader. I mean, obviously, we need things like humility. We need an openness. We need trustworthiness. We need absolutely to be that if we open ourselves up to that, that we have to be willing to hear the feedback that we get. I remember having a discussion with a leader. We were doing a SWOT analysis and I was interviewing staff about certain aspects of the business. And I remember the owner came to me and says, yeah, I hear that you're doing this thing. I don't know what it is. But you're interviewing the dishwasher? And I said, well, yeah, dishwasher has some really valuable— the only thing a dishwasher could tell me is what time his smoke break is and when is payday. And it's like, you don't think that he has insight into the flow, his workflow, and what he does every single day?

Wow!

I mean, we hire these people to be experts in our business. And if you turn around and say, well, the people I hire aren't experts, then you need to be looking at your business because these are the people who are going to your customers, by the way.

That's it. You're spot on there. And I am seeing, Marc, a growing disconnect between senior leaders and the frontline. And if you think about it, we know executive pay has risen much faster and farther than what hourly pay has risen, for example. But we also are seeing that most of the leaders are managing behind spreadsheets. They're in meetings all day. They're doing reporting and investor schmoozing or whatever they need to do. Okay? I mean, I'm not discrediting that. Those things have to happen. But they're getting farther and farther away from the front line of those people, as you said, who serve the customers and clients and guests. guests and residents and patients and whoever it is you serve, right? So, it is critically important that leaders have emotional intelligence now and that they can read the room and that folks do not get disconnected from their people. And it happens slowly. You kind of have a lifestyle creep and you get into a nicer neighborhood and you get nicer cars and You move to the other side of town and things like that. And what I find is most of the senior leaders who are making policy decisions, pay decisions, all these things, they don't even live in the same part of town that their staff live in. They don't shop at the same grocery stores. They don't send their kids to the same schools. And they don't understand some of the impacts of inflation if we're dealing with that or the price of gas or the price of bread, those types of things. For a senior executive, I mean, they fill up their gas tank with a credit card and walk away and don't even notice that gas is a dollar more this month, you know, per gallon or whatnot. And so, the staff, unfortunately, they might go to the gas pump. They see that it's that much more expensive and they're freaking out like, well, should I only fill half my tank or should I just not get as many groceries this week? You know? Yeah. I mean, they have to make that kind of life decision. And yet, you'll hear somebody say, well, dishwasher, what's it matter? That's all he needs to know. Well, he can quit because I can get anybody to come in and be a dishwasher. No, you can't.

Yep.

First of all, no, you can't. And second of all, we need to respect every single position and make sure that they can fill their gas tank at the end of the day. That type of thing. So yeah.

You know, I'm a little sad. I'm a little sad that we don't have like the old-style carts with the big wheels and the cogs because I lose the metaphor when I say, hey, when you lose one of those spindles, like the cog in the wheel just dies. And it's like, try to do that. Try to move the cart, missing spindle after spindle and see how far you'll get.

Absolutely. And when you have those, those frontline workers, when you have those folks quit, then your managers get overloaded. And then they're gonna quit because they say, I can't keep picking up all these shifts. I can't keep pulling doubles. I can't keep doing all of this. That's not sustainable.

Absolutely.

You know, it's, it is absolutely a domino effect that can go through the organization. And We need to understand the true cost of turnover, that it is harder today to refill that position. And you have the learning curve that they have to take time to get to full productivity, which is not cheap, not free to get folks trained. And there's just a huge slew of costs beyond just the job postings and just the training costs. It is that learning curve. Are you using any kind of temp agencies or are you paying overtime? time to cover those shifts? Are you losing, let's say you lose salespeople, are you losing clients or prospects? Yeah, because you lost that relationship, because you lost the momentum. You know, I've been through that in 11 years. I've lost a couple salespeople along the way. And there's always a tremendous loss of momentum and rebuilding those relationships if the salesperson was the main point of contact.

Yes.

So, whether it's an hourly person making $15 an hour or it's a salary person making 6 figures, we don't want to lose more folks than we have to.

Right. And sometimes, we want to lose people and that's okay.

That's okay.

But we don't want to lose the people who are contributing to the wellness and our business. As people are listening, tuning into this episode, I imagine that people, some people like I'm always afraid of band-aiding managers. And those are the managers who listen to an episode like this and they're like, they're right. We have to do something. And they put the new policy of the month up about how they're going to do business. Are there any cautionaries we should be aware of as we try to reevaluate our corporate culture and our processes to start thinking about retention?

Yeah, good call. Don't make assumptions. Just because even if I said something here about, well, the new workforce workforce wants this. Well, go validate that with your workforce because there are differences in rural versus metro, in Canada versus U.S. You know, there are differences between all different things, the generations, the genders, the, you know, who is your workforce that you are trying to attract and retain?

Yes.

Because there will be nuances for that. Talk to your trees that have been there a long time. Talk to some of the new hires. If you can, contact some of the new hires you lost who said, well, this isn't what I thought it was going to be, or I didn't feel well-trained or well-managed, or I felt like I was the last one to know everything, or whatever their reasons for quitting. Like, contact them and say, I candidly want to know how to make this organization a better place to work. So, just do not make assumptions because if you think everybody's quitting, For better pay and better schedules, which are the two I hear all the time. They just want to make a buck more an hour. That could be, but even if that's what they told you, they come and tell me, "No, I really left because my manager sucks," and I really left because they had terrible communication. There were no staff meetings. They didn't ever let us know what they were doing and why we were in the dark. I don't trust. them. There are much bigger reasons than just a buck more an hour, or a salary raise, or anything to do with comp. It's usually much more than that.

And it's deeper and it's deeper. And it takes time to mine that information out. This has been absolutely fabulous, Kara. I can't thank you enough for talking to us about this. I have a sneaking suspicion we could make this a 3-hour podcast delving into different aspects of human resources and corporate culture and all that sort of stuff. In fact, we could We could probably do an hour just on your Magnet Framework alone for each one of the Magnet pieces. But do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

Oh my goodness! Just please reduce the judgment on other people, whether they're older, younger, just different than you because professionalism is subjective. It is your opinion whether you think my purple hair is professional or unprofessional. So, just give folks as he said, a little more grace, a little more tolerance, and just be more curious. Ask questions. Wow! I've never thought about having purple hair. Why do you have purple hair? Or what's behind the purple hair? Just get more curious and get to know your people instead of just judging everybody.

I love it. I love it. Could you just remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Yeah, I'm Kara Saletto. You can visit carosoleto.com or magnetculture.com to find us.

Thank you so much. I want to thank you so much for sharing your passion, your expertise. This has been an extremely fun conversation. I've enjoyed every single minute of it. Thank you again for doing this with us.

Same. Thank you, Marc.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, Feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. Pretty convenient, isn't it? It would be my absolute honor for me to be of service to you. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and leave a review or comment about this episode? I'd love to get your feedback. Was this value to you? Did you learn anything? And of course, if you haven't done so yet, please make sure that you subscribe Subscribe to this podcast. That means if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you ring the bell as well. Thank you very much for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception.