Develop an Effective Talent Retention Plan
Keep talent from walking out the door by discovering and addressing moments that matter and turnover triggers.
- Regrettable turnover is impacting organizational productivity and leading to significant costs associated with employee departures and the recruitment required to replace them.
- Many organizations tackle retention from an engagement perspective: Increase engagement to improve retention. This approach doesn’t consider the whole problem.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Engagement surveys mask the volatility of the employee experience and hide the reason why individual employees leave. You must also talk to employees to understand the moments that matter and engage managers to understand turnover triggers.
Impact and Result
- Build the case for creating retention plans by leveraging employee data and feedback to identify the key reasons for turnover that need to be addressed.
- Target employee segments and work with management to develop solutions to retain top talent.
Develop an Effective Talent Retention Plan
1. Analyze the cost and impact of turnover
Assess turnover data, prioritize employee segments, and engage stakeholders to establish goals and metrics.
2. Identify reasons for regrettable turnover
Analyze why employees join, stay, and leave your organization to identify common themes and employee needs.
3. Select solutions and create an action plan
Select and prioritize solutions to address employee needs and plan to launch stay interviews and implement solutions.
Workshop: Develop an Effective Talent Retention Plan
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Identify Reasons for Regrettable Turnover
The Purpose
- Gather and analyze organizational turnover data.
- Identify the main drivers of turnover at the organization.
- Conduct focus groups to discover employee needs.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Organizational turnover data analyzed.
- Main turnover drivers identified.
- Focus groups conducted.
Activities
Outputs
Analyze data to determine why employees join, stay, and leave.
Identify common themes.
- List of common themes/pain points recorded in the Retention Plan Workbook
Prepare for focus groups.
- Plan for focus groups documented in the Focus Group Guide
Conduct focus groups.
Module 2: Select Solutions and Create an Action Plan
The Purpose
- Develop an empathy map to further understand employee needs.
- Form the stay interview guide.
- Outline specific retention initiatives and associated metrics.
- Identify key actions to realize retention plan.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Empathy map generated.
- Stay Interview Guide customized.
- Retention initiatives and metrics developed.
- Action and communication plan outlined.
Activities
Outputs
Create an empathy map to identify needs.
- Employee needs
Brainstorm stay interview process and customize guide.
- Stay Interview Guide and process outline
Select retention initiatives.
- Retention initiatives
Determine goals and metrics.
- Goals and associated metrics recorded in the Retention Plan Workbook
Plan stakeholder communication.
Build an action plan.
- Action plan documented in HR Action and Communication Plan
About McLean & Company
McLean & Company is an HR research and advisory firm providing practical solutions to human resources challenges via executable research, tools, diagnostics, and advisory services that have a clear and measurable impact on your business.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your HR problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Try Our Guided Implementations
Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 9 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation #1 - Analyze the cost and impact of turnover
- Call #1 - Discuss turnover metrics, healthy turnover, environmental scan, benchmarks, and how to collect and analyze turnover data.
- Call #2 - Review results of the turnover analysis and discuss how to prioritize employee segments.
- Call #3 - Develop plan to engage stakeholders.
Guided Implementation #2 - Identify reasons for regrettable turnover
- Call #1 - Discuss how to gather, analyze, and identify themes and trends in employee data to understand why they join, stay, and leave.
- Call #2 - Review themes from the employee data and prepare for focus groups.
- Call #3 - Review focus group feedback and identify priority issues.
Guided Implementation #3 - Select solutions and create an action plan
- Call #1 - Discuss retention solutions and identify most appropriate options for the organization.
- Call #2 - Discuss the stay interview approach and customize the Stay Interview Guide.
- Call #3 - Review selected retention solutions and develop an action plan for implementation.
Contributors
- Gregory P. Smith, CEO, Chart Your Course
- Dr. Iris Ware, Chief Learning Officer, City of Detroit
- Jane Moughon, Specialist in increasing profits, reducing turnover and maximizing human potential in manufacturing companies
- Jeff Bonnell, CHRO, Info-Tech Research Group
- Linda Goldblatt, Independent Consultant
- Lisa Kaste, Former HR Director, Citco
- Michael McGuire, Talent Management and Senior HRBP Lead, Shopify
- Phillip Kotanidis, CHRO, Michael Garron Hospital
- Piyush Mathur, Head of Workforce Analytics, Johnson & Johnson
- Richard P. Finnegan, CEO, C-Suite Analytics
- Thomas W. Lee, Professor of Management, University of Washington