Corporate Social Responsibility & Employee Involvement

In the HR world things are changing super fast!  One Donation tracks trends many trends such as job satisfaction and employee engagement - and there are a lot of tools that provide instant feedback. This is all great… while at the same time, not so great.

In today's post, we are going to address the topic of employee retention, focused on retaining younger employees.  After reading, please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

To begin, below are two questions. Give them a quick read and think about your answers. Several business owners that I know personally have answered yes to the following two simple questions.   

  1. With older employees retiring - how can I maintain the same level of employee knowledge and experience when new employees are barely lasting one year? Is this a problem that your business is facing?
  2. In the past two years, has your business invested vast amounts time, money, and resources to perform company wide training on how to work with younger employees?

During our customer research, we came across many executives that answered yes to these two questions. At the end of the day, the workforce is changing and as business owners and executives you need to stay ahead or run the risk of closing your doors.

Most companies have developed answers to the above questions and some may even be successful in implementing the solutions. Too often times the businesses are leaning heavily on the veteran employees in order to make of the difference between new hires and the necessary knowledge and experience required to do the job. One major issue with this solution however is that takes time away from training new employees and developing new clients.

Why are we having trouble keeping and developing new employees?

One explanation is that the current work force is not committed to one profession or business.  Gone are the days of company loyalty, and for good reason. Companies for the most part have not shown loyalty to their employees.

In John Rossheim’s article (Keeping Options Open is Key to Career Path), he discusses how people can keep their options open by networking on social media, viewing a post, or simply keeping a current resume published to the web.  This is important to young employees because they are completing a degree with no professional development and probably are loaded with school debt, are taking the first thing available. This leads to job hopping in hopes to make an extra buck to find that place that they will be “happy”.

Is there a solution?

There is a solution that, when executed properly, can help with the retention of new employees. The solution starts during the interview process. When the applicant moves past the first rounds of interviews and looks like a great fit for your business, the interviewer should now focus on the questions by the applicant and what drives them.

In the last couple of interviews that I conducted, four out of five applicants asked about the companies local community involvement. These individuals were more concerned about how the company supports the community than how much they would get paid. Another regular question I received from interviewees was about their role and ability to participate in the companies corporate outreach.

If you are like most businesses, you are probably saying, “Wow, we already do this! And yes, you can participate!” But in reality, your company may do this with HR representatives sending out big checks, sponsoring and playing in golf tournaments, or executives serving the poor. In our experience, the people participating are those in upper level management or in HR.  The new employee is not directly participating in the companies community outreach and most importantly they do not feel like they are a part of the team.

If I were to give one solution to keep new employees it would be to:

Listen to the new employees questions during the interview, hear what they are focused on aside from the paycheck, and make sure they have the ability to participate in the programs that interest them.