Lauren,
Students connect with the school through its employees. When a connection is broken through an employee's departure, the student looses his/her reason to stay and student retention is negatively impacted. The earlier in the student's educational journey, the more fragile the connection and the easier it is for the student to walk away. On the flip side, some turnover is good in that new blood can bring in new ideas and new energy but all turnover needs to be managed so that to students, the turnover is seamless or transparent.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
Our retention is crucial to our success at the school. Each time we have turn over we lose years of knowledge and experience. The students feel the change when experience walks out the door and inexperience walks in. It affects the students overall success.
Cassandra,
Employee continuity, or lack thereof, negatively impacts the entire organization. The task for which the former employee was responsible still need to be done, so continuing employees need to step up to the plate and take them on. Depending on how management handles that scenario can positively or negatively impact morale. You mention finding the right candidate and then training takes time and the longer that goes on, the more negative the impact. Short term fill-in is usually okay as long as that employee is recognized for taking on additional responsibility and some additional compensation provided. The policy/procedure issue you raise may not be a problem if you have a strong onboarding process. There is still potential for slippage, however.
To retain your employees and, therefore, reduce the issues created by turnover, you need to create an environment by treating employees with dignity and respect and through your actions letting them know that you value them and their contributions. I know, all of this is sometimes easier said than done but turnover is costly to an organization, so finding ways to improve the turnover rate does impact the bottom line.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
Retaining employees is very important for the overall success in any company. For us when an employee leaves it takes a while to find the right candidtate and then to traing them which causes other memebers of the team to pick up those job duties on top of their own. It also causing problems in consistancy with our clients, so when new employees aren't aware of all the policies/procedures they are more likely to give the clients/students wrong information which in turns frustrates them and can effect their completion of the program.
Shelley,
It really all comes down to communication. If we communicate effectively and as honestly as possible (given the HR privacy requirements), the students will usually adjust.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
Shelley,
You describe a special situation that seems to have worked well for your program. The type of position assigned to the graduate is a factor in the decision as well. In my experience, I would see campuses hire grads to teach as soon as they graduated. We in the for profit sector have always prided ourselves on the fact that our faculty bring "real world" experience to the classroom. If they have not been out in the "real world," they don't have much to share with the current students. Your situation seems like it might be quite different than what I describe and does serve a particular purpose.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
Jeannie,
I totally agree! I think often times it's not necessarily about keeping the same instructors all the time but how we present the changes to the students. I think they often will feel abandoned and have difficulty adjusting because they don't trust that the new instructor will be there or that they will have no idea about when and how changes will be made going forward. I've found that if we can inform them as promptly and professionally as possible that changes have been made, they are more secure in their trust of the institution and therefore adjust better to the changes. Obviously sometimes we don't have the option to handle it in the way we'd like to but as long as students feel they are being heard they seem to adjust better. Maybe having an open forum for students to express their feelings and anxiety and have questions answered could be helpful.
In our case, employee retention could be considered counterproductive. I manage a graduate program where we hire some of our graduates to work next to our students. In many cases I would like to retain the graduates for our clients. However, often times we hire these graduates so they can "incubate" into readiness for the job field. The quicker we turn those employees over, the better we've done our job and produced employable graduates. I know this is a unique situation as we are an educational institute. I wonder if other companies do this type of thing? Maybe it's only available as layoffs and restructuring occur at some companies. Is this something that would even be valuable in a more corporate structure?
Linda,
So often we are reluctant to part ways with long-term employees for a number of reasons. We hate to lose the history resident in those folks. We feel loyalty to them. They are a known entity. And yet, once we bite the bullet, so to speak, we find the end result is a new, fresh excitement that just didn't exist before or hadn't for a long time. Fresh blood can have that impact with new ideas, new ways of doing things, and so on. It just requires someone to take the initiative to take that first step and the results can be enlightening. In doing so, however, we also need to prepare for the potential impact of such a move. For example, student like stability and by removing those who have provided that stability in their lives, students can be lost and may opt to walk away themselves. Prepping them and providing additional support during the transition becomes a major responsibility.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
Eva,
That is so true. Keeping the morale high is always a challenge and there are so many things that contribute to that. In my mind, it is treating faculty and staff with dignity and respect. In a former life, we were having issues with faculty threatening to organize. In response to that effort, I wrote the twelve habits of successful faculty administration. It began with "Treat everyone with dignity and respect." One of our many issues was that administration failed to provide faculty with the tools they needed to teach; e.g. working copier, white board markers, erasers, etc. Faculty would purchase their own and not be reimbursed. When you do those kinds of things, faculty are going to react negatively and look outside for representation. So when attempting to retain employees, our behaviors can drive the end results.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
I think that employee retention has a tremendous impact on the overall productivity of our organization in a variety of ways. We have recently lost two long time employees who were really not being fully productive and contributing team members. Replacing them has opened numerous opportunities for other employees to consider shifting their positions within the company. This generated lots of individual and community reflection and insight. With a carefully planned period of x-training, the results include increased enthusiasm, confidence resulting from taking a chance/challenge for growth, fired up productivity and creative, new approaches within each of these roles/departments. It has also brought some fresh dynamics into the micro-cultures that have experienced staff changes.
It goes without saying that the more experienced and comfortable employees are in their positions has an overall positive effect on the productivity of an organization. Having said that, the challenge is to avoid complacency and to also recognize larger organizations are dynamic and retention strategies need to evolve to the changing overall corporate structure as well as the micro drivers at the campus or department level.
Jeannie,
If the students do indeed feel abandoned, it can impact your retention. If those they trusted and who cared for them are no longer there, it is easier for the student to walk away at the first indication of an obstacle to their forward progress. Reorganization can have the same impact. Students like and need stability. For many students, this is precisely what they have not had in their home or past educational environments. If we can provide that for them, they are more likely to successfully complete their education.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
In a business where students are your customers, employee retention is paramount. If working as designed, a school should exist as a community. In order to have true success, students must feel safe and confident in those they have trusted to educate and partner with them to reach their individual goals. I am always amazed by how employee change affects my student body. Even when the change is positive for the employee and the students are happy for the individual, the students can still be left feeling abandoned and have difficulty adjusting to the new instructor.
Kara,
That is the risk of a small campus. The cross training, though, is a real advantage and allows for multiple resources for covering in a vacancy situation. Your on boarding process is key to both the job mastery and the team player aspects of the job. I am sure you have a very tight, family type atmosphere. That in itself creates a culture. It is sometimes difficult to comfortably integrate new employees. Anything that you can do to smooth that process will help.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
Kara,
It's all about building relationships both within the campus and within the community as a whole. That way you establish your credibility and those hiccups don't negatively impact you. Involving employees in decisions, at least communicating with them regarding those decisions is a big part of it. Listening and caring are additional key factors.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
I manage a small campus where is it common to move up the ladder through a number of job positions, creating employees who are cross trained and incredibly valuable. When we lose employees it is devastating to production, because you can't hire anyone on the same level as the group member who left. Creating the culture is one of the most difficult tasks. Integrating a new employee and training them to not only master their job, but also be a team player.
Community building has been a huge part of my job through the years, but I find it can also have a negative impact when an employee leaves. I've seen it cause a chain reaction of resignations that can take months of recovery. What are some good ways to solidify the group when it is time for one member to move on?
Jocelyn,
You are so right on target. Some turnover is healthy to bring in new blood and new ideas, but keeping it to a reasonable level is a sign of a good manager. Creating a culture of employee development allows you to work with an employee to improve productivity and performance. This can reduce turnover, improve employee satisfaction, and improve your bottom line.
Dr. Patricia Kapper
It's human nature to want continuity and connection particularly in the face of the 21st century's culture of change. Reading through the many responses and answers to this question, the common theme is disruption on so many levels from the loss of an employee.
In a school environment where 'relationship building' is paramount, the loss of just one staff member can adversely impact not only their colleagues through increased workload & morale, but also the extended community- faculty, students, and the public through the loss of the trusted 'point of contact'.
It is key for organizations to understand not only the tangible revenue impact on their bottom line but also the intangible impact to their broader constituents in designing and prioritizing retention strategies.
