US senior HR: Why do employees leave a startup company?

Source: Internet
Author: User

When Carly Guthrie, the hero of this article, worked as HR at Per Se (the most popular chain restaurant in New York City), the general manager gave her the following advice: "Guthrie, you know, as a senior leader of the company, employee performance evaluation can be divided into two categories: Class A, which do you do well, Class B, and which do not do well. "The general manager taught her how to turn negative comments from employees into positive comments.

After guthire left per Ser, he continued to work as HR at the technology company and kept the skills she had learned at Per Se. In her opinion, there were few frank conversations between employees and leaders, which eventually led to employee resignation, which shocked her. "This is the dominant profit-making trend in the technology circle. People are pursuing faster, more popular, and more destructive power, but there are few internal discussions on how to retain talents. "

In the past 15 years, Guthrie has seen countless employees start and quit. In her opinion, the reasons why people like or hate a job are basically the same. The first step of Talent Retention: understand why Talent Retention and why companies cannot retain talent. During this exclusive visit, Guthrie will share with you the reason why she knows about the employee's resignation, and let the start-up companies know what the employee should do after the first day of employment, so as to ensure that the employee remains happy and actively participates in the work, contribute to enterprise development (or even allow employees to delete the hacker emails sent by other companies ).

Reasons for the loss of enterprise talent: you do not respect their time

From Guthrie's experience, if an employee feels angry, boring, or unsatisfied at work, the employee will start to contact other employers or headhunters. She said, "they often feel tired, or their spouse is unhappy because they don't go home after working overtime. A truly outstanding CEO will consider the overall situation of the company and know that employees have their own lives out of work. Therefore, the first way to prevent employees from leaving is not to make them feel like they want to work elsewhere. "

However, it is inappropriate to consider this too easily. For example, Guthrie has seen countless companies set their weekly staff happy gatherings at 04:30 every Friday afternoon to increase Team friendship. But the result is: employees will think that if they want to become good colleagues, they will have to stay until, then they will not be able to catch up with the car, and finally they will go home late, it will be very tired to go home late, and they should be doing what they like at this time. "Moving the staff gathering time to Thursday afternoon can make employees feel that the company is paying attention to them and make them feel that the company and leadership are very good to them. "

On the other hand, many startups prefer to attend diligent staff meetings early on Monday. Guthrie's earliest meeting time was half past seven. "No one wishes to go to the meeting at half past seven on Monday morning! No! Yes! Person! Hope! Yes! This forces employees with children to fly and send them to the meeting. Even if employees may not have children, they also want to make the most out of the weekend. Who does not want to go to bed late on Sunday evening. "Although the company may not be interested in it, this communication method reveals that the company does not treat employees as people.

"From five o'clock P.M. on Friday to nine o'clock A.M. on Monday, this time is the employee's own time and does not belong to the company. "Whether to work on weekends should be selected by employees. If you think that a startup enterprise requires a faster speed, consider the following:

Employees who like work and the company are willing to work at any time. If you hire the right person, this kind of thing may happen.

If employees have their own lives, they will do better work. Guthrie said, "although this is not a popular opinion, I have seen this happen many times. Not only do employees who have children or are married, but anyone who has community activities outside of work is willing to have their own lives. However, few employers will respect this opinion. If the CEO can do this, it will certainly make the employees closer to you. "

Some companies begin to take a further approach to let employees have their own lives, and some companies will give employees one-two weeks of vacation, during this period, they did not have to worry about the company's email or tool information. When employees are on vacation, they should stop sending emails to them.

"During this period, employees can have fun with their families or travel. "But what if there is an emergency at work? Guthrie said, "We are all adults and we can solve the problem naturally. "However, this strategy may not work in some startups, but if your company is already large, you should respect the time of your employees. For most employees, "time is more important than other things. "

Employees are reluctant to leave because of their boss.

In the HR field, one of the main reasons for employee resignation is that they cannot get along with managers. Although it sounds like this, "In fact, few employees leave for this reason. "In general, in the recruitment process, you can determine whether employees and bosses can get along with each other. If an employee leaves the company because of the boss, it is the recruitment failure of the company, that is, during the recruitment process, the employee did not have enough contact with the boss, or from another perspective, the boss is a poor character.

However, a major reason an employee leaves because of a manager is that he or she loses confidence in the Manager or company. Guthrie said, "If you have a lot of great ideas, but you no longer trust your company or company philosophy, you will lose confidence in your marketing or leadership abilities. As a company leader, you need to be aware of this potential risk within the company and solve these problems in advance. Otherwise, the best and smartest talent in the Company may change jobs. "

If entrepreneurs require employees to fulfill their performance, they will lose their hearts.

Generally, in order to prevent the loss of talent, entrepreneurial enterprises require employees to continue to work in compliance with contract requirements when employees say they want to resign. However, in this case, the battle to retain this talent is basically lost. "When you say" I'm not happy "to your employer. You may continue to buy me for six months by contract, but what I can do here is basically that much '"

"If employees are happy, they will not consider other jobs. "

Candidates always forget that finding a job is an exhausting process, and they will only go back to consider looking for a new job when they are not satisfied with their current job. "If you are happy with your current job, you will not consider looking for a new job. You will want to go home and have dinner with friends, and you do not have to worry about how to schedule work hours to attend interviews with other companies. If employees are satisfied with their work, they will not find a new job. "

This is what we need to do to retain talent.

Identifying and preventing employee resignation is only part of the problem. The best strategy for retaining a person includes not only preventing employee betrayal. We need to increase the happiness and friendliness of our employees in a forward-looking manner. Next, Guthrie will introduce some strategies that startups can adopt:

Establish a community with a destination

First and foremost, the Founder needs to create a community that people are willing to spend a lot of time working on. "I have seen employees actively participate in product development in some environments, and they feel that they are doing a very important and meaningful thing. "

Your goal should be to make employees feel: "When we get together to do one thing, a team will have a chance to succeed. "

As the HR and operation director of readyforce, Guthrie saw the incredible unity of the company. Some employees were good friends even if they left. Such community form can improve the level of talent, make the company more united, and make it difficult for team members to leave. So how does readyforce achieve this?

Readyforce has a unique interview process. During the interview, the three interviewers will interview all the candidates for a job separately so that they can compare them one by one. Then they get together and say who is better and who is not good. If the three of them disagree, they will explore why and have a meaningful debate on the subject. "This forces everyone to come up with their own ideas and think carefully about the people they meet. Is this person a suitable candidate? Why? What are the consequences of joining him? "Finally, if everyone is excited about joining a subject, the subject will receive an offer.

Another big difference is that companies do not simply look at technology when recruiting. "To be honest, we are interested in whether employees are humorous. We are willing to recruit more amazing employees. I think it may be due to the fact that we prefer to work with people whose learning abilities are not strong but fit with corporate culture. "

On the contrary, this will screen out people who are skilled but unable to integrate into the corporate culture. Frankly speaking, Guthrie recommends that startups ignore "smart asshole ". Enterprise culture cannot be defined by a piece of text on paper. It is a reflection of the company's collective character. Every employee you recruit will bring some differences to the corporate culture. It is also important to note that smart asshole is difficult to remove, because once they start to make good work with their own talents, it is difficult to quit them for a normal reason. However, these bastards will have a negative impact on corporate culture, making them appear more time in the company (bringing more and worse effects ).

Before implementing a detailed and comprehensive induction process, readyforce also adopted a unique group activity attitude. "Many companies see mandatory happy activities, whether employees are willing or not to participate in these activities. In readyforce, I think our work experience is special, because these activities are spontaneous and organized, and we decide whether to participate based on the individual interests of our employees. The leadership will also provide resources and space based on employees' interests, so that employees can make more creative things. "

You need to weigh the importance of the Community and the freedom to allow employees to work remotely.

As a popular retention strategy, enterprises allow employees to adopt flexible work systems, which generally allow employees (especially engineers) to work at home. But how should the Home Office strategy be coordinated with the establishment of a community and a unified culture?

"There are no mandatory regulations for working at home, depending on the corporate culture. "

It is difficult to answer this question. Guthrie provides two suggestions for startups:

Ensure that managers trust their employees. The manager thinks from human nature. "I see this person is not in the office, and I will subconsciously think that he is not working hard. "Managers need to communicate clearly with employees, companies need to see the results of their remote work, and employees also need to believe that when managers ask them to go to the office, there is an important thing to explain. This respect the time and capabilities of both parties and, more importantly, mutual respect.

If you provide engineers with the option to work at home, this option should be open to all employees. If only engineers can work remotely, other employees may feel dissatisfied. "Can a salesperson call at home? Unfair treatment will also lead to the departure of employees. "It is best to prepare a document that retains the benefits that allow employees to occasionally work at home while uniting the Office friendship.

Build a mentor system that employees really want

Provide excellent mentors so that the relationship between mentors and students is natural and simple, and employees can do better. The mentor system can reflect the company's investment in personal growth of employees and satisfy employees' interests. But cannot be forced. Just like a mandatory happy activity, it is impossible to match mentors and students at will.

"You cannot introduce any new employee to a mentor and say, 'You are your students '. This kind of thing also happens frequently. "Guthrie said," What you should do is look at the personal skills of new employees and learn what they want to learn. Then, find the old employee who matches the skill and interest, and explain to both parties why. "

"The mentor system needs to be completed in an even more natural way and cannot be enforced as usual. "

"You must also consider that some people are unwilling to communicate and interact with others. In terms of learning, will it be helpful to combine the two members? If they are positive, they may be able to be combined into mentoring. Ask every employee: What do you want to get in this job? What other skills do you want to learn or continue to hone? How should we help you? "

Asking these questions can convince employees that they have chosen your company correctly. It is also important to focus on the needs of employees. If people in the marketing department say they want to learn Ruby programming, or if an engineer says they want to learn speech skills, never be confused. Write down what they said and introduce them to the most appropriate mentors in the company. If the instructor is not completed, consider how these persons can learn more together. Maybe you can give them an agreement that can be seen several times a month. If they are closely related, everything will be done well, and they can decide whether to continue mentoring. Keep an eye on the mentor's movements during the training process and give students the opportunity to demonstrate their new skills.

The mentor system is also an effective way to shorten the feedback cycle in the traditional "Manager-employee" relationship. It can help entrepreneurs detect employee job-hopping problems as soon as possible.

"Excellent mentors will give you feedback on what you want to accomplish through the mentor system. "

Start-ups can use the mentor system to shorten the feedback cycle without worrying about whether employees will feel nervous about their performance. Especially when the company has not yet established a formal reporting system, employees are more willing to communicate openly with their mentors, allowing the company to know earlier whether employees are looking for new jobs.

Finding a good HR as early as possible can bring a lot of difference.

"It is disappointing to hear that HR only handles affairs according to rules. "Guthrie said," That's why companies need a reliable, trusted HR or representative. With such a position, employees will feel that they can ask him any questions or even some stupid questions. As a founder or a manager of a startup company, you should have the highest and deepest trust in HR. "

"Who do you need most in your team? It should be hr. "

"For whatever reason, you need to find someone you like. The HR position is not only related to rules and algorithms, but also involves some humanistic care. In the end, it is a very troublesome job. You need to be empathy with the team and find someone who can say, 'although I don't agree with your decision, I will put myself in the position to think about the problem from your perspective. "

These are the qualities that a good HR needs to possess, but the most important thing is that a good HR can effectively train managers to solve similar problems and troubles.

Guthrie said, "a feature of a healthy corporate culture is to make employees feel comfortable when asking questions and then getting feedback from leadership, and vice versa. If an employee walks into an office and finds that the HR is already in the room, if the employee feels that there is no good thing, it indicates that there is a problem with the company's atmosphere. This is a fault of the management, and they do not communicate clearly. "

In order to train the management and form a strong board of directors, you should find an HR (or someone who can perform similar duties) at the early stage of the company's startup ).

Sometimes, especially when you are operating a startup company, outsourcing HR is the best solution because there is not enough funds, because outsourcing HR does not belong to the company, will not participate in the company's development process. "If you do this, this HR is just here to help. Then, when the number of employees increases to 40, you have a general understanding of the operations of the Personnel Department. The Founder is very lonely, but I think it is easy to forget this kind of loneliness. However, finding an HR to see what you don't see, and solving and managing it may make the founder feel a little less lonely. "

Summary

There are many ways to retain the best employees, but it is not necessarily a panacea. When thinking about your company's retention strategy, remember the following:

Remember that employees who have their own lives outside of work should cultivate their time to respect employees.

If an employee leaves because of the boss, it is not a bad character, but a loss of confidence in the company.

Binding a protocol is not a cure, and does not save the employee's unhappiness at work.

Building a community within the company is the key to talent retention. Please ensure that the recruitment personnel should cooperate during the recruitment process, and consider the cultural fit of the employees.

Developing a detailed "work-at-home" strategy can improve employees' happiness and retain talents, but whether or not it is implemented depends on the company's needs. Make sure that the company remains fair.

A good mentor system is organized and in line with employees' interests and future development. The mentor system will also bring about a shorter feedback cycle.

You can invest in HR early, and both the HR process and HR personnel can bring good results.

US senior HR: Why do employees leave a startup company?

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