Three Key Strategies for Workforce Planning to Drive Hiring and Employee Retention

Aside from the stress of having to attract the best talent, getting through the challenge and time of onboarding your new hires, then taking the energy to actually engage your new employees, you soon realize that the monetary cost of labor turnover is just a tidbit to what the true cost is. So, as a leader, what can you do to make sure your time and energy and money are put to the best uses when it comes to investing in your team.

When you're delivering an important speech to a huge audience, it's easy to lose your—

Oh, technical difficulties all the time. Anyway, so that's coming up next on Marc Haine Live. Welcome back to Marc Haine Live. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to help them work on their business, not just in their business. I am your host, Service Expert and Master of Experiences Marc Haine. And today, I will be speaking with Employee Retention Specialist Joanne Marlowe. But before we get to her and get down and dirty with this topic, I just wanted to invite you to subscribe to this channel. It's important that I know that you value what you're getting out of this. And so, if you can give— go ahead and give me even give me the thumbs up. And follow the channel. You'll get first dibs whenever I post something brand new. And do feel free to be part of this conversation. Wherever you're consuming this, go ahead and put comments in the comment box below. Share your ideas. Share your insight. And even maybe push back a little bit. That's okay. You know, one of my first corporate jobs came about 1999. And I walked into an environment that had a labor turnover rate of 300%. So, just to put that in perspective, it means that the department turned over the equivalent to their 80 employees 3 times a year. Think about that for a second. 80 employees turned over 3 times a year. Last week, while I was talking with Sarah Emhoff, we talked about the coming attrition rate. as the pandemic eases up. It's all over the news right now that they're saying that 1 in 4 workers plan to quit their jobs when the pandemic is over. And the majority of them are women in your workplace. So that brings us to— So what steps do you take to mitigate your employee turnover? Do you even measure it? It's a big question. As I mentioned, my guest today is the author of 15 books including 25 Powerful Strategies to Hire and Successfully Retain Millennials. And it's available on Amazon. So, go ahead and check it out. Joanne Marlowe is the creator of the unique Hire Right System that helps people like you hire and retain the very best She has a master's degree in leadership and training and has trained thousands of leaders over the past 30 years. Welcome, Joanne! Welcome to the show. It's so nice to have you.

Thank you, Marc. Last 30 years. Oh gosh, that puts me close to, I don't know, 100.

You started when you were 12. Let's face it.

And you know, I did. I had my first business when I was 10. And when I was 15, I hired my first employee. And I set a goal when I was 13. I saw my brother, who is older than I, go off to Europe with some high school chums. And I thought, why not me? Hello. And so I scraped together my business paper route money My babysitting, and then I did retail as well. And by the time I was 21, I had enough money for a 7-month tour on my own of Europe.

Wow.

And I took a cruise from Vancouver to England and then spent another 6 months touring all over the place, all based on a goal and having a plan.

Wow, good for you. And so, I have to ask, where did this behavior come from? Was it something that was ingrained through your parents? Was it just that you saw somebody had something that you didn't have? What drove that?

Well, sort of a good question because it's sort of a combination. My mother was wonderful in setting goals. And she was a woman who stayed at home. In those days, you pretty much did, and she was a wonderful mom. But and I received an allowance, and I was given a choice: you can save it for something you want later, or you can spend it now. And I thought, well, I don't know what I want later, so I'm going to save it. So I started saving at a really young age. The other thing too is, you know, I knew there was better stuff out there, and I wanted to figure out. what it was I wanted. And, and I actually surprised myself at 13 that I would have such a big audacious goal. And I never lost sight of that. That was sort of my North Star.

Yeah.

How much money? I didn't want Christmas presents. I didn't want birthday presents. I wanted to get a Canada Savings Bond, and it went immediately into the bank. And, you know, I've always been very goal-oriented, always had that kind of behavior that if I want something, I have to dream big. And I am a visionary. Drives a lot of people nuts because I think way out of the box. And I share that with a lot of my clients.

Nice! So, we kind of got into this and this is the interest part of it because I love what you do and I love your message. And I I am always thrilled whenever I get to hang out and talk with you. But maybe to kick us off, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do for your clients?

Well, for sure, I recognize I have a great conversation with the owner or the CEO. And one of the things that I make sure I do is have a good conversation. Quite often, they're not even aware that they have an issue that is involves people. And so, I find out what some of the symptoms are that are creating discord in their business. So, one client thought that maybe his supervisors or his VPs were not getting enough training and he should send them back to get some formal training. Another reason he thought maybe he was having a problem was Triangulation or being in silos where they didn't communicate with each other quite enough. And I thought, well, those are guesses. What are some of the symptoms? How do you know you have a problem? He said, well, our profit margins keep going down even though our revenue keeps going up. And I said, okay, so let's find out why that's happening. So the first thing I do is a complete assessment of the culture. And I, old school, I believe in talking to people. I don't— I introduce myself on— yeah, I know. I know, go figure. And, you know, business owners don't have time to do that. They just don't. But being a certified coach, and I build trust immediately. That's one of my big purposes there. Everything is confidential. So I interview everyone. It takes about 45 minutes per person. And I interview the top senior people. And I ask them deep questions. And then I shut up and listen to their answers. And I take copious notes because then I'm using all parts of my brain. I'm using my eyes, my ears, my head, my hands. And I can see it on paper. later. And it's much, much more fulfilling than recording.

Yeah.

And then what I do is I actually determine what their core issue is. I do a full assessment. I look at the costs and everything. I go even deeper. And in this case, I found out that there was no HR system in this business. And they had 80%, 80% turnover. And it was costing the company a quarter of a million dollars to lose those people and replace them. The CEO was absolutely shocked. And so, what I do is I come up with alternative solutions and then I come up with the best one.

Sure. Usually me.

Yeah.

So, in all the businesses that you've worked with over the last few years, Are there any commonalities as to what causes a lack of employee engagement and the high turnover? Have you seen a commonality to it like a central core?

Not really. Every company is unique. I've dealt with very small businesses that maybe have 2 employees. But depending on the industry, I've dealt with physicians. They pay their people Well, because they figured that'll keep them. And yet their attitude, what they say to their people, the demands, the no training, here's a contract, sign it, good luck. You know, that won't keep your employees. And especially now, if things are being forgotten, like one of the priorities for all employees right now is safety. And some people forget that. Others are totally in their brains. You know, they're logical thinking. They don't— their EQ isn't particularly high. And so, they don't communicate well.

Right.

They're brilliant in every other way. But their communication style, frankly, it kind of sucks.

Right.

And people are offended. And if they're not appreciated, Or even told, hey, you're doing a good job. Really, really glad you're here. That's all that a person needs to say, okay, I'll put in another month or another year. And now we've got 5 generations who are in the workplace and they're sort of 16 to 80 years of age in all varying positions. But the thing is, is if you're not familiar with why they behave the way they do and you treat them the way— maybe you're a boomer and you treat them the way you would treat a boomer. rather than a Gen Z, you're not communicating properly. And the young people have very, very clear expectations. And if you're ignoring those, again, that creates a situation where it's just not cohesive. It's not aligned.

Right. In past episodes, we've talked about corporate culture. We've talked about the role of leadership. When somebody takes a look at their business and says, they recognize I have a problem. I don't know what the problem is. But I know I have a problem. What are some of the things that they need to be looking at? I mean, you mentioned one thing with the people not being trained. And I know in my background as a hospitality specialist, I know in hospitality, there's all too often, there's the concept of, hey, you're an experienced server. That's great. Here's your apron. Here's your card for the point-of-sale system. There's your section. Go! Right? And people literally have to live, have to learn by attrition or by osmosis. Osmosis. That's it. That's the word I was looking for. And so, is this a central core, central theme to what you're seeing? Or does it go deeper than that?

You know, people leave for a number of reasons, and the recognition is number one. But also, even before that, the process of finding the right people has a lot of flaws. And I am not going to poke and point to HR professionals. I really am not. But they have a very difficult situation, I have found. This is a generalization. So, you know, they want to be able to contribute, hire the right people, but they don't have the time. They're putting out all kinds of little fires, or they don't have a voice in the company. And they realize it. And that's a problem in itself, where they are one of the key people in the company because they're hiring Everyone that's going to make or break your organization. And if they're not given direction or they can't have the time to talk to the manager, department supervisors to find out what kind of personalities, what kind of behaviors, what sorts of skills are you needing the most, they won't be able to hire the right people. Or even if the supervisor says, oh, I just use the old job description we've used in the past. Well, the job changes, and generations, times have changed. So it's a it's a system. You know, it is truly a huge system. And if you you know knock one of those dominoes down, they affect everybody else in the company. So it's not just but you know when I did mention communication earlier, it's the constant communication. It's the The progress tap in the hallway. Just, hey, how are things going? How are you doing with that new client? Any difficulties? Do you need any help? How can I help you? Or is there someone that I can help get to help you? That kind of thing. It takes 1 minute in the hallway.

You know, it's so funny because I've mentioned this to some leaders. And they look at me like I have a third head. And they say, what? You mean I have to babysit? And it's like, it's about relationships.

Well, in one of my presentations, I actually asked how many people in the audience, and there are about 300, had kids. And unbeknownst to me, most of the people were young millennials in the audience. You know, that was a surprise to me. And when you're looking at a stream of faces, you don't say, oh, you're in your 20s and you're in your 40s and you're a boomer. But it was a mixed crowd of executives and people. So when I, you know, and as soon as I didn't see too many hands going up or know someone with kids, and then, you know, laugh, laugh, and they all put up their hands. So the thing is, as I said, If you had your own children, what is it that you do as a parent to ensure their success in life? Do you give them the proper nutrition and activity? Do you give them time to rest? Do you make sure that they're educated well? And do you help them choose behaviors and attitudes and values? Yep, yep, yep. Well, why aren't you doing that with your employees? And the room was silent. So, I think I may have struck a nerve.

I know that there's some people who have the impression, I pay my people. So, that's the big difference. I know that you have a 4-pillar definition of a sound culture. And well, 4 pillars for sound culture and for a sound business. I'd like to get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! I am talking with Employee Retention Specialist Joanne Marlowe. And we're talking about the culture required to drive retention and engagement of your employees. Joanne, before we dig into your 4 pillars, how much Does the culture revolve around the leaders?

Oh, I love this question. If the leaders don't know why they're even in business and they don't have a foundation to propel them to their vision, nothing else is going to work. I know that's pretty strong. But they're going to have problems. And the first problem they're going to have is lack of productivity. And then, people will leave. And I call it the revolving door because that's in some companies. That's what it seems like.

Now, I talked to— I joked about the grumpy boss who said, but I pay my employees. Do employees have any role with defining the work And the culture that is in an organization? And if so, how does a leader pull that out of them?

By asking the right questions, flat and simple. So, whoever is doing the hiring needs to be aligned with exactly what the leadership team wants in the business. And that leads to the 4 foundations that I'm going to talk about, the pillars.

Hmm.

And once you've got the whole leadership team, then you can actually ask during the interview and provide information during the interview so that the candidate is going to be able to say, are you my match or not? You know, a human being is like an iceberg. And most employers look at the tip of the iceberg Yeah. The top where you've got skills and strengths, weaknesses, and experience. The thing is, is that the rest of that person is under the water, and rarely do businesses or HR hiring recruiters even look under, under that. So, one of the things I've been doing is working with a company in Ottawa that supplies an incredible database all created through IA— AI rather, artificial intelligence.

I, you know, IA is intelligently artificial.

So, there you go. There you go. And that's where I learned more about competency-based management. I've been working with competency-based learning and management for 20 years. And so that's what That's what I've built my model on. The thing is, is once people are actually asking those deep questions, and the deep questions would be, here's a case study, or here's a scenario, how would you react? How would you deal with this? And then what the recruiter is doing is they're listening for the behaviors, they're listening to attitudes, they're listening for equality, unconscious bias, all that kind of stuff. And if that doesn't align with the company, poof. Hmm. So, they can see that entire iceberg and say, are you competent and aligned with everything that our leadership team wants so that you will share our goals, share our vision, share the purpose that we have in our business? And do you have the right behaviors and values that we also hold high?

What's interesting about that, Joanne, is that since the Millennials came into the workforce, they plus the generations that are following have the exact same expectations as individuals as what you're talking about the businesses need to have.

Yes, yes. And there was always a big scare pre-2000. So, the Millennials are coming. The youngest or the oldest millennial now is going to be around 41 this year. So, it depends where you go for your research. But typically, 1980 was when the millennials, first millennial was born, give or take a few years. And the youngest is 25. So, the millennials have finished their education and their training.

Yes.

They are a brilliant bunch. But they still have some behaviors that can be annoying to some Right. Some businesses, depending, they're all different. And to lump them into, you know, they're entitled, they have terrible work ethics, they're going to text me and say I quit, and they do that. You know, Generation Z, who is 16 to 24 years of age right now, they have a totally different behavior than the millennials. And their behavior is, I do not want to be in debt. I want to be educated. I want to be creative and start my own business. And they get a lot of help in some cases from mom and dad. But they also know that if they work hard, they will be rewarded. But they also expect that kind of recognition. And it's not, here's a bonus and a trip to Hawaii.

Congratulations! You just got an 8-cent raise.

Money isn't the biggest thing for those younger generations.

No, but it's still a slap in the face if it's not treated well.

Oh yeah. And when I was that age, I remember being offered something that didn't even cover my loan on my car and my rent. And I thought, are you freaking kidding me? I didn't say that. I said, thank you. I'm looking for twice that amount. And unless you can offer me that, I'm sorry. I have to turn down this opportunity.

Sure, sure. I touched briefly at the beginning of the segment. I touched briefly on the upcoming predicted exodus of the remote workers. post-pandemic. It's been all over the news it seems like for the last couple of weeks. Sarah Emhoff and I talked about it in our last episode because I think this is going to be a really very real concern. Now, some of the people are going to be quitting their jobs to go and work somewhere else because they're burnt out and they're fed up with the existing circumstances with their employer right now. But even scarier than that though is that women are going to be leaving the workforce altogether. And according to a UN report, they said that what's going to be happening post-pandemic is going to challenge the evolution of what we've seen in the workplace as far as women are concerned. It's going to set it back like 30 years. Is there anything leaders can do right now to stem this flow?

Well, I mean, just those statistics, what you've said, is really startling. A lot of women are going to leave to start their own businesses because they are empowered now.

Mm-hmm.

They have still gone to work. They've raised their families. They're working from home and they're surviving just fine. And also, this is a time of massive change. You know, so many businesses have had to pivot, but if they haven't got those 4 pillars that I talk about. And I'll just very briefly discuss what they are.

Sure.

So I look at this as the foundation of all businesses, whether you are a consultant of one or you have 100,000 working for you. And what it does is it answers these questions. And maybe before I go into that, I'm going to give you a little scenario that allows your audience to actually go, oh. So here you are on your way to work. Beautiful sunny day and you're driving, you're humming to the great tunes. And as you round the corner to your office, you see a mass of people outside on the street looking at a building going up in flames. Then you realize, oh my gosh, that's my company. My entire business is going to be ashes. And once you recover from that shock and you make sure that everyone is safe and accounted for, what goes through your mind? What am I going to do now? And in my story, you look across the street and there is the most perfect office building That you could slide into effortlessly. But my challenge for you is you need to ask yourself some very important questions. What am I going to do now that I've done before that I do not want to do anymore? So what am I going to take away from my business that I don't need? And what do I need to put into my business that I've never done before that I do need? Out of all these wonderful people, who am I going to keep and who am I going to let go? What relationships do I need for my new business and what relations from the past do I need to get rid of? Those are just a few questions that you need to ask yourself. And the pandemic certainly put many businesses into that situation last year and now. And so, those 4 pillars that I look at is you need to know without a doubt what your purpose is. Why are you even in business? I call it North Star. You know, and when I was 20 and I heard that 8 out of 10 people were unhappy in their jobs, Bing, light bulbs went off. And I have spent a lifetime teaching young people, young adults, and now business owners and managers and leaders that if they don't have that North Star, if they don't have that burn in the belly, that purpose, and it's not well-defined, then what are they doing anyway? You know, when we have something like the pandemic or there's a political crisis or an economic crisis, That purpose will still drive them in the right direction and they'll be able to make right decisions. So, that's one pillar. The other one is, what values do I want everyone in my business to embody? So, you need to take a quiet and really serious look. It's not just, well, I want everybody to communicate. No, I want them to communicate authentically. I want Yeah. I want to be able to tell them when the business is doing well and when it's not because somebody's going to come up with an answer. And that's what I'm looking forward to. So, what, what as leaders do I, do I want my leadership team to embody? And then I'm going to hire everyone else who believes in my purpose and has the same values as our team, our management team. The third one is behaviors. How do I want people to behave? I want people to be treated with respect, perhaps. I want people to be accountable. I want them to think like leaders and solve issues and bring the solution to me rather than the problem. And the fourth one is vision. What is the vision for your business? If you have all 4 of those, In place, you're going to— you are going to have a solid foundation that you can share with the rest of your team. And the thing is, is that, you know, we've had a lot of crisis management going on, and some people have, in the crisis, folded. And some are just hanging by a string, and others are going to flourish.

Yeah.

And the difference is they have those 4 pillars in place. And they've taken action and they've hired everyone who is totally aligned with those 4. But they've also taken the quiet time they need.

Mm-hmm.

It's like, okay, go to the cabin, seclude yourself somewhere where you're not distracted and you can actually really answer these questions. And the crisis in the management becomes calm.

Right.

And you make good decisions that way.

Yeah. You just mentioned something. And in past episodes, we've talked endlessly about how when you cannot see the label when you're inside the jar. And so, for me, this is the perfect opportunity for you to tell people how they can get a hold of you if they need your help to be able to sort through this. How can people get a hold of you?

My website is probably the easiest. It's my name. So, it's joannemarlowe.com. And on there, you will see information about what I do. You'll see how I do it and how I help businesses go through. I've got basically a 3-stage opportunity for people to learn and change and implement those changes. And I help them and facilitate that process all the way through no matter how long it takes.

Nice, nice. I love it. I hope this is making sense and is of value to you. You know what Joanne is talking about today is something that I think is— we're looking at a situation that is in every business that I call incidental entrepreneurship or incidental business ownership. Because we weren't trained on how to do this stuff. And so, I encourage you to give Joanne a call. And please feel free to give us a thumbs up and share your comments below. I'm looking at the comment box. There are no comments at the moment. But even if you're watching this on the replay, put comments in the comment box. I'd love to start this conversation with you. We will be right back with more from Joanne Marlowe.

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Welcome back! In past episodes, we've talked about the importance of strategic plans and how important it is to include attraction, retention, engagement strategies in those plans. Joanne, do you think, is this a typical thing that people are doing or is this a step that people are missing?

I honestly think it's a step that they're missing. I've done so much research and talked to so many HR managers, CEOs, researched other systems that are out there. And they're missing— they're aware that something is missing. But these 4 steps and how to— and the model that I'm using allows everything to be aligned. And it deals with the needs of all 4 or 5 generations.

Mm-hmm.

A CEO, like you mentioned, you can't read the label from inside the jar. So many CEOs and business owners are so busy just surviving and doing what they need to do, putting out little fires or even big fires with arguments and that kind of thing between employees that they can't even see that there's a problem. They're too close to the situation. And I always say, a fresh pair of eyes can come in and define the problem. If you don't know what the problem is, you can't solve it. You just can't solve it.

And it just takes the humility to say, I don't have all the answers and I need help.

That's right.

So aside from that, are there actual steps that leaders can take once they've decided that they must make a change? Like they've analyzed it. They've gone through your steps. Like what decisions do they now have to make in order to push themselves forward?

Well, if they want everything to work, if they've done the 4 pillars.

Yep.

And their leaders are now trained on why this is so important. So, these are my steps that I help to implement. Determine the problem. Train your people. Hire people who are aligned with that. And then, implement the whole thing throughout the company. You're going to have people who are actually excited because they understand your purpose.

Yes.

And they appreciate your values and share them. And they're fully aligned. They're going to have the same behaviors that you find important. And by implementing that whole thing, people stay longer. I'm not saying they're going to stay forever. We're never going to see that 35-year retiree from the same business ever again.

It's because we stopped giving out gold watches, Joanne. We cut our budgets. We stopped the gold watches. Now, nobody stays. And the Millennials are going, I wonder what he's talking about, a gold watch. I've never heard of that. Ask your parents.

Yeah, we're never going to see that again. The average time a Millennial is going to stay with you might be 2 years. And I'm saying, hey, if you're doing 3 to 5, That's good. And so that constant open communication needs to be there. Onboarding is critical. You would be surprised how many businesses don't even know what that is, or they figure it's not important. And it is critical. And I even say you start the onboarding when you have your final 3 that you're considering, and you lay out All your expectations, the behaviors, the rules, all that kind of thing. When they can expect to be given a raise, how they can get a raise. But with competency-based management, all of that is done for you.

Hmm.

It's— when I did my master's, it was all based on competency-based learning.

Sure.

And I had to be accountable in proving that I had earned this particular competency With the experience and the examples in my essays, my reflection.

Sure.

So, you know, if everyone knows exactly where they are in the company, then they can say, oh, I'm not quite here. Then the employer can say, well, let's give you some training in that area.

Sure.

Rather than, oh, you're weak in this area. I need you to be strong in this area. I hate that area. And you're wasting money training them on something that they're not particularly good at.

I'm blown away by it. It all seems to be about communication. Like you mentioned it earlier on, it seems like we've done this complete circle on it that you talked about the power and the need for the communication aspect. But all through our conversation today, we've seeded that. And that stays as a consistent criteria in everything we've talked about today.

Yes, and like you said, it's about relationships. That person who's got tucked away in their cubicle and they barely say good morning and good night.

Yeah.

It depends on their personality. They may believe totally in your 4 pillars.

Yeah.

But their style of working is head down, do the work. But they still need to be recognized for being there, for handling something difficult, for helping you reach your goals. And whether it's a monetary thank you or whether it's a promotion, some people don't want a promotion.

No.

Some people don't fit the mold to move on. They're perfectly happy in doing. So, that's where you've got to find out who are you as an entire person, not just our accountant or our salesperson. And at minimum wage, it's a minimum hard cost of $10,000 to replace them and get the new person up to speed.

Yes.

If you're paying your staff in these physicians who are paying their staff $26, $28 an hour, And they were doing the work themselves. The doctors who are earning $400 an hour were doing the hunt, the recruiting, the interviewing at $400 an hour. Oh my gosh!

How does that make sense, right? But then again, people do it because it's then I am in control.

Yes.

Right? And again, we've talked about this before about leaders needing to delegate if they want to be able to push And it doesn't make any sense that if somebody's, like you said, as a dentist or a doctor, you're making $400 an hour. It doesn't make sense that you go and you do the $40 an hour job or you do the $20 an hour job. Even worse, the minimum wage job.

Well, and that's right. You have to give up control and do what you do best.

Yeah.

And recruiting sometimes isn't what you should be doing.

Right.

So, you know, when I have— when I'm doing an assessment for a company, they say, I just— a small company, they say, I just don't have time to recruit. So, I'll do that for them. And it takes, you know, for the normal person, it takes about 30 hours to come up with the ideal person. It takes me a lot less. And I ask questions that the candidates say, whoa, nobody's ever asked me a question like that before. And I'm going, Yes, I know. I want to know you to the core so that I can match you and you won't leave prematurely.

And it just seems to make sense, Joanne, that especially where we have small businesses, where we have let's say businesses that have let's say under 10 employees, the owner-operator doesn't necessarily have the skill sets themselves to do adequate hiring. Because they've never been trained. And so, they're again, it's like, oh hi, you have a pulse. Good. You're standing upright. Excellent! You fulfilled our criteria. And then, they pull their hair out going, oh my God, I can't wait to get rid of this person. And so, being able to hire somebody like you on a task-based or on a project-based, where it's like, I need to find 3 new people to get ready for this expansion we're doing or whatever. Bring you in for a very short period of time. And then after that, that contract's over. You now have the people and so on. They have your guidance, which I think is invaluable. But at the same token, I also know that there's some people who might be tuning into this episode and thinking, oh my goodness, this is stuff we need to do. And just like at conferences where the manager goes to the conference and comes back and says, okay folks, we got a new strategy. We're going to start right away. Are there any cautionaries to what we're talking about right now? Because the last thing I want people to understand is that this is a band-aid because it's not a band-aid. We're talking about long-term sustainable solution that helps your business move forward. So, are there any cautionaries that you have for people maybe watching this or tuning into this?

Yes, do not assume that you have all the answers unless they're written down and thought through very, very carefully. Like I mentioned, you need to take that quiet time and go through that. And then you bring in your team and say, this is what I'm thinking. Let's talk about it and do some brainstorming. Because I've been in so many businesses where I say, you know, do you have a vision? Sure, there it is on the wall. We pass it every day. And then I say, well, how is your team embodying that vision? What behaviors do you recognize? And they're looking at me as if I'm speaking Greek.

Yeah.

So, you know, don't assume that everybody thinks like you and that you've got things in place unless they're absolutely— those 4 pillars are absolutely written down and thought through. You're not going to have that guidance to take you further. You're going to fall down one of those One of those pillars, if not built strongly, is going to collapse your business. Or it's certainly going to affect your productivity and the retention. And retention, I mean, in that one case I gave you, to have 80% turnover was a quarter of a million. There was a company that I dealt with. They had about 32,000 employees and said, oh, our turnover is only about 5%.

Wow!

And I said, that is admirable. And when I have a special calculation that I plug all the figures into, and in that department or that calculation, we were also looking at a cluster of some managers. It was costing the company at 5% turnover, $30 million a year. And if you could have seen the jaw drop.

Oh, I can imagine.

So, I dig deep. I love digging and figuring out what is it costing you. And those are hard costs. That has nothing to do with the people who are working overtime or thinking, am I next? That kind of thing.

Lost sales, unhappy customers. The whole thing that happens when you do a transition.

That's right. So, that communication that you mentioned, I look at the one-minute manager. You go in, hey, noticed that you really dealt well with that difficult client the other day. That's good. And then, you sandwich it in with, next time you have someone like that, if you want some help, or I know Harry. And so, if If you're dealing with them again, call on me because I've got a couple of tips I can give you. But boy, you handled it very well for your first time. Very proud of you.

Gone.

That's the recognition they want. That's the communication they want. That in many cases is better than a raise.

Yeah. As we wrap up, I know that some people will be looking at this and saying, okay, I get it. I know I have a problem. I know I have to do something different. What should be the very next step they do as they get off this episode?

Well, they need to figure out what their purpose is. Now, that's the first step. If they don't have that guiding North Star kind of thing, if they don't know their why as Simon Sinek says, they won't know what direction they're going to go into next. And they may have to pivot but they still have that purpose. They still have that purpose. So, that would be the first step. Well, maybe the first call.

Know your way. And again, I think it's very easy to say that. I think some people would say that, oh well, that's so easy. But it's not easy. This is the thing is you created a business because you had a passion for something. or a necessity for something. You saw an opening. And I realized, and I say this all the time, this idea of being an incidental entrepreneur. I know people who have kind of fallen into business. And some people might watch this and go, that's ridiculous. Nobody falls into business. But they do.

That's true.

And I have a lady who in Calgary, Alberta who is a gardener. She's actually graduated university in philosophy. And She loved gardening. And so, she did a beautiful job in her front yard. And her neighbors came to her and said, oh, could you show me how to do that in mine? Could you help me with mine? And so on. And before you knew it, she had a business. But then, she's calling me months later with 5 employees going, I don't know what's going on. It's so simple and yet, they don't get it. And so, once we go through it, we understand what her purpose is. But she fell into this business. And her purpose very simply was to create gardens that people would want to talk about. It's that simple. And so, the big thing was for her then to communicate that to her staff and use that as, like you said, a North Star. So, is this what you just did today? Is this going to be something that people will talk about in a positive way?

Hope so.

Joanne, this has been so great. Could you just remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you and whatever you can. What do they need to do to use you as a resource?

Well, if they go to my website joannemarlowe.com, I'm offering to any of your listeners at any time a half-hour conversation, totally complimentary. I would love to hear what your challenges are. And even during that time, We will begin to solve some of some of those situations, or I will recommend the next steps for you. The thing is, is you can't do it all alone, and you have to literally take your ego out of it. You have to if you are a business owner or or CEO for a little while, you need to take your ego out of it and ask for.

Yes.

Also on my website where you can sign up, you can log in and receive an article that I have researched to death. And I've come up with an article, The 3 Unspoken Reasons Why Your Best People Leave. And even when reading this, if you have a heads up on what not to do, you can fix it before it becomes a problem.

Yeah, very good. Joanne, thank you again for sharing your obvious passion with us today. I am absolutely sure that people are going to be taking copious notes and reviewing this. And what was it she said about the 4 pillars? So valuable. So incredible. Thank you so much for doing this today.

Oh Marc, it has been a pleasure talking to you. Thanks for making this fun and Helping me to share my passion, my absolute purpose with whoever is listening. And perhaps, they'll share too. So, thank you.

You're awesome! Thanks again. Why don't you give me a thumbs up 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, Go ahead and feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is down below and it's meetme.so/MarcHaine. As always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, why don't you go ahead and hit the subscribe button?

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That'll give you first dibs whenever I bring you the content that will help you work on your business, not just in your business. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.