I stumbled across a very interesting IG post discussing employee retention. Here is a quote…
Have you heard about the Netflix Dream Team? Have you heard about the Netflix Dream Team? They view their employees as a part of a dream team, not a family. A dream team is about pushing yourself to be the best possible teammate, caring intensely about your team and knowing that you may not be on the team forever. While this may sound harsh to employees, it is really placing a higher standard on leaders and ensuring they do a regular inventory of their teams because people are a company’s greatest asset.
The comments with the most likes were the ones that held management equally expendable. A few examples…
I don’t mind the test, just hope they’re doing the same test with their leadership as well. [14,186 likes]
This only works as a concept, and even then it’s a bad one. A lot of managers would want to fire people that they see as a potential threat, and keep other people for the wrong reasons. [1,403 likes]
Worse move. Manager will remove the people they feel threatened by, to take their job. The more the employee knows an the more other departments go to that go to guy. The more the managers look for ways to remove them. This is an easy way to lose great employees and maintain the same leadership. [1,927 likes]
This is how mid/incompetent managers fire highly motivated and smart employees who could easily take their job. Now you only have mid employees working for mid managers. Your “dream team” are all working for someone else now [331 likes]
At the heart of all of these comments, and the post itself, is employee loyalty and how to keep it. In these interesting times, I am sure many people are staying in their jobs because they feel that job opportunities are scarce. And if that is true, and I believe it is, companies will be hit with a major retention issue should the economy shift to more favorable conditions for the jobseeker. How do companies protect themselves? Well, one sure fire way is to treat your employees well and make working conditions so palatable that they never want to leave. Another way is to source workers who tend to be loyal to their employers. But how do you do that? Try sourcing by work anniversary. Here’s how…
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average tenure of the American worker (between the ages of 16 and 65) is 3.9 years. Such being the case, recruiting people who have been working in one place longer than 3.9 years suggests that they are not typical job hoppers. Of course, once you find them, you need to be able to have an attractive carrot to offer them. If your company has a stellar employment brand and a great compensation package then, your efforts to recruit them may be easier than most. Assuming you have that in place, search out people who have celebrated their work anniversaries on LinkedIn, mentions of employee tenure online, and/or track resumes where their current job has been held for more than a few years.
In the above search, I am doing the following…
“3..15 years at”
This search is using Google’s numrange command. I am looking for the phrase “3 years at” OR “4 years at” and so on, up to “15 years at.” (Be advised that the numrange command is exclusive to Google.)
“site:linkedIn.com”
This search is focused on the LinkedIn website and not the entirety of the internet.
“inurl:in”
This is seeking those web results that have “in” in the web address. I do this because it refines the search to LinkedIn profiles only and not other pages on LinkedIn.
java
This keyword is added as I wanted to find software engineers skilled in java.
In the above search, I am doing the following…
“software engineer”
I am looking for someone with the title of “software engineer” on their LinkedIn profile.
“3..5 years at Apple”
I am using Google numrange command to find the phrase “3 years at Apple,” “4 years at Apple,” or “5 years at Apple.” (Be advised that the numrange command is exclusive to Google.) In the example above, feel free to switch the company name and job title to whatever type of profile interests you.
2020..2022-present
I am using the numrange command to find resumes where the most recent job is cited anywhere from 2020 up to 2022. Keep in mind that the resume might not be up to date.
The words “education,” “software” and “testing” are in the search because those are words I expect to see on the resume of a software tester.
intitle:resume.of
I add this to my search in order to find web documents with “resume of” in the title.
Make sense? By targeting candidates with a history of long-term tenure and demonstrated loyalty, recruiters can create more stable and reliable teams. At least, that’s the theory. Ultimately, focusing on retention may prove to be the most powerful recruiting strategy. Those are my thoughts? What are yours? Reply via social media and tag @sourceCon. I may cite you in our newsletter.
See you at SourceCon!
Jim Stroud
Your SourceCon Editor