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Unbound is a weekly podcast, created to help you achieve more as a leader. Join Chris DuBois as he shares his growth journey and interviews others on their path to becoming unbound. Delivered weekly on Thursdays.
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Employee Benefits, retention and more on today's episode. Are you a leader trying to get more from your business and life? Me too. So join me as I document the conversations, stories and advice to help you achieve what matters in your life. Welcome to unbound with me, Chris DuBois. Doug Brown is the founder and president of managed to retain and engage to perform offering programs dedicated to helping businesses throughout Canada and the United States retain employees. 30 years of management has given Doug insight into the benefits that supported and fulfilled employees bring to a business that uses company and employee feedback data to better understand employee needs, concerns and challenges to develop and provide training and structure processes for mid level managers that strengthen relationships with employees, cultivate positive emotions and work experiences and ensure their needs are met. Through these focuses, Doug has helped businesses thrive through decreased turnover, improved company morale, and increased managerial skills that grow and engage their employees. Duck. Welcome, Ron Ben.
1:11
Well, thanks so much, Chris. It's a pleasure to be here. And I look forward to our discussion today.
1:16
Yeah, just just with reading that bio, there's so much that we're going to be able to dive into. So why don't we start with with your origin story?
1:24
Yeah, I'll give you a little background. I guess. Going back to my graduation from university, I got involved in the food industry and spent about 15 to 20 years actually in the processing side of the food industry, and then transferred over to the sales side of the food industry. And, you know, my professional career continued on with some different firms. Beyond that, but I think it's important to note in 2000, the year nine or 2099 2000, I had started a kit business for our children called recognition rewards. And it was really just an opportunity to help the kids learn a little bit about the business world and, you know, earn a little bit of money and see, you know, what's required from a customer relationship and fulfilling those needs and those kinds of things. And we were trying to obviously help businesses recognize and appreciate their employees. And I still believe that's really a cornerstone today and in the retention process, and as well as engagement. But, you know, the business grew for a while and, you know, we had an opportunity to progress and, and then around a, say 2007 2008, I started another business called engaged to perform. And that really was the result of kind of recognizing that there was much more to employee engagement and motivation and loyalty than then recognition, and appreciation. So what we wanted to do with engaged performers is better understand the needs of employees. And the main focus of engaged to perform was employee engagement surveys. And over those the last 1214 years, we've had really been able to do a deep dive into the employees needs, their goals, their concerns, their challenges, all those kinds of things and get a real, I think, comprehensive understanding of what they they're looking for in a working career. And then I would say in about a year and a half, two years ago, we started to read a lot about the great resignation. And I'm sure you've heard of that, and I'm sure your audience has heard of that. And it really was, was factual, of course, and really what it was, is we did start to see increased turnover levels, in many industries in many sectors, and, you know, given our understanding of some of the employee needs, and we felt we had some solutions to offer businesses so man managed to retain basically, that was the genesis of managed to retain and for the last year, that's been the main focus of my efforts is to help businesses understand there are there are solutions, there are effective processes to to help build strong retention within organizations. So hopefully, that gives you a quick overview,
4:34
ya know, and again, most so many places we can go into here. So, I'd like to start by just talking about like, why why are employees leaving? So I think if we can grasp that understanding, yeah, then we can solve the problem, right? Yeah.
4:48
And I'm not I'm not sure in all honesty, Chris, I have all the answers. I can give you a few thoughts from my side. You know, because there's so many factors involved and different employees. They've for different reasons. But certainly there are financial considerations, remuneration considerations. And this goes to salary and benefits and bonuses and many different ways that businesses are trying to attract and retain their employees through through compensation. So that's one factor. I also think it's really important to note that there are many non financial factors on real, why employees may may leave. And we've probably all heard the phrase, employees leave managers or bosses, they don't leave companies. And and that's true today. And as it has been in the past, they're certainly if the relationship between a manager and an employee is not strong, if they are not communicating well, if there's distrust, if they're, you know, if there's criticism, if they just, you know, aren't on the same wavelength kind of thing. It can often lead to resignations. But there's many other reasons there's there's culture, toxic culture, sometimes people leave just to, you know, they're moving to a different city or their, their wife might have a new career, or they have a better opportunity somewhere or they're, they're not growing or advancing at the the what they expect. Or in some cases, the the job role and the responsibility doesn't meet their expectations. It's not really what they signed on for. So there really is a variety of reasons. And but I think those two main classifications financial and non financial really cover most, if not all of the reasons and right.
6:42
And so it's one, we're looking at the ones that we can actually influence, right, like not the spouse moving for a different job opportunity, what conversations should we start having with our teams? Now that I can kind of get ahead of this? That's
6:58
a great question. And I'd say that I think it's critical and crucial that managers have regular conversations with their employees. And, you know, when I when I look at, and when we study retention, you know, I guess it's a fair question to ask who's who's responsible for retention, who's in the strongest position to influence and impact retention. And, you know, in our survey work, and our studies and the feedback from companies and managers, and business owners and executives and things like that, it almost always comes back to the manager. And not that it's all on their shoulders, but they're in the strongest position likely to influence those retention drivers. You know, mentioned earlier, I think, employee recognition and appreciation is still one of the cornerstones. Well, if you were to say, Who's going to recognize them, who knows when they've gone above and beyond and achieved something great. Most people say it's their manager, if you're looking to, let's say, autonomy is another key retention driver, if you're looking to see, you know, whether they have independence and empowerment and their job to make decisions and do the work, the way they see fit, it's the manager that will also always almost always have that trust in the employee to allow them to be autonomous in their work. So where I was going with this is that I think the conversations between a manager and employee are crucial, because they enable the manager to understand, you know, three, four, or five key things that are really important to the employee. And, you know, every employee is different, and we all have our unique needs and goals and interests. But to be able to understand those, and then maybe act on them or support them to a degree is is really crucial to building that relationship and engaging the employee.
8:58
Right. And so you almost need like a train the trainer type setup, where the CEO is able to ensure the managers have what they need, they understand how to facilitate these conversations. Yeah,
9:08
yeah, it's true. And, again, as I said, the managers really can't do it on the on their own. They need commitment from the senior leadership from the ownership group that says, hey, retention is important. We're serious about, you know, retaining our talent, we put a lot of time and effort and investment into, you know, maximizing the talent that we've got, and helping them make the contributions that we need and want from them. We certainly don't want to see after we've done all that work and effort, them to turn around and walk out the door so to speak, after 12 months or 18 months or something like that. So, the the senior leaders, you know, need to, I think explain to mid level managers that they play an important role in the retail ention process, I would also suggest that they, they have to step forward and say, Alright, we recognize and we want you to be more involved in, in retaining our talent. But we also want to help you, we want to give you the skills and abilities, we want to invest in that training, we want to make sure that we have processes in place that can help with retention. So we they have a role to play for sure, as does human resources. So it's a combination of all those things. Yeah.
10:31
And so I guess what trends would you be looking for within the business either to identify individuals or maybe like a systemic issue across your team? To get an idea that retention is about to be a problem? Yeah,
10:43
I think there's, we have a tool that we use, it's called the retention risk analyzer. And really, what we had done with some of our previous data is boil it down into about 20, around 20 main categories that affect retention, and, and employees leaving. And so to understand how it really it's an assessment of how connected employees are to their organization, and it's based on some personal connections is based on some emotional feelings about the company. It's based on their their career experience, is that a rewarding career experience? Is it is it fulfilling for them. And then also the, I would say, career growth and development, you know, if an employee has a goal that a career goal that they want to get to a certain point, and they want a certain type of work that will challenge them and help them grow. They most often need training, they need development, they need support to get there along the way. So that if they lie, if that's lacking, then, you know, it's another case that they may not be not be happy within their role. So I think there was something else on your question there. Did I miss that, Chris? Or
11:58
what trends? Correct for like, yeah, individuals?
12:02
I think there are some different trends. I think that you're, you know, first of all, you're starting to see much younger generations come into the workforce. I think the estimate now is, I think Gen Z's and millennials probably make up 35 to 40% of the workforce. And one of the trends that we're seeing is they really do have a different approach to work, sometimes a different attitude towards work. And it's not. It's not right, it's not wrong. I'm not saying that. But it's just different. And I think there again, to understand what what the employees are seeking, and looking for that that's important, an important trend to be aware of. I think, also you're starting to see some some stresses and burnouts that are affecting some decisions. You know, mental health is certainly growing. challenges related to mental health are growing. So that's, that's another area that I think is a growing trend, and something where perhaps businesses can offer some support and these kinds of things, I think the pandemic really kind of shook things up for a few years, I, I believe it's getting a little bit better now. And people are a little bit more comfortable with it. But what we did see from that, as another trend is now hybrid work and working from home. And those are also key factors that are affecting the workplace. So there's, there's several key trends. And that's only a few I'm sure there's, there's many others that we could talk about. Right?
13:38
Now. That's great. Let's, so I don't want to spend a ton of time on this one. Okay. But let's go into some of the financial reasons that he will leave or some of the benefits that you could be putting into play to keep people okay, and I say this, because I feel like it's probably easier to come up with compensation packages than it is to do the non financial pieces. But yeah,
14:03
well, yeah, I think one of the keys is organizations want to know that they're competitive in the marketplace. And it's, it can't be up by guest and by golly kind of thing. You know, I think they they probably get feedback, they talk to other business owners and things like that. There's There's also various services out there and we partner with them a little bit, in case somebody's looking for something to understand how competitive there is, but salary.com is one and there's a couple of others that we work with that really can give you kind of a detailed assessment on whether you're competitive or not. So I think that that's one thing that you know, when inflation is going up, the cost of living is going up in many areas, you know, groceries, gasoline, and so on. So, the rent and things like that. So, employees are getting squeezed Just a little bit financially. So unless organizations aren't competitive, then then there is grounds there, I guess or reasons to say, Hey, I might have a better opportunity or might explore another opportunity to see if I can maybe earn some more money. So that's one thing. And then we're starting to see some different things that are coming into the marketplace. Very quickly, I mentioned that one organization we know of, and we talked with, they're doing some things to help students pay off their student loans. So again, for the younger generation, that can be an important benefit, to help them kind of whittle down their student loan debt. And then on the other side of that, they help young families a little bit with mortgage payments. So again, these are kind of financial incentives, financial benefits that might be attractive, and some of the trends that we were starting to see in terms of innovative things. So.
15:58
So I've noticed something that's, I think has been happening, I might be completely wrong. You can tell me if you think so. But the with so many startups getting funding and being able to pay VC above, you know, whatever the markets asking for, for certain positions, I feel like a lot of people are seeing that as the minimum bar, rather than an exception to the, you know, what the markets actually doing? Do you find you find that's the case with a lot of people where they have this unrealistic expectation of where do their salary? You're absolutely
16:31
right. And I think, you know, in honesty, companies are often driving that a little bit, because they're using financial strategies to attract new talent. So they're saying, Hey, we got to pay them more to get them away from their current position or role. And it's a bit of a two edged sword, because what you start to see is that like, I think there's been some examples recently in the, in the tech world, where TELUS was one, I think there was there's a couple others, I can't remember the name where they've just recently laid off, you know, hundreds, if not 1000s of employees. And it's because they're there, the financial viability doesn't make sense on carrying all these salaries and, and compensation. So organizations, I feel, again, if I go back to my point, have to be competitive. And but, you know, they have to ensure that they're competitive, and they can't maybe overpay to attract, because eventually that that, that has to settle out somewhere. And, you know, I think it's not always just, I will increase our prices to our customers to make up the difference. It just doesn't work that way. So Right.
17:42
Yeah, I think there were enough companies over the past couple of years that receive funding from the government for various grants, loans, things like that. And over hired or paid, and ironed out, we're almost forced to delay the clock, because they just their business couldn't find that viable source. But so let's let's go into some of the non financial aspects, some of the things that we can be doing in order to entice people without necessarily just fill in their wallet? Yeah,
18:12
well, I guess I would start by saying that, you know, employees have a choice where they want to work and, you know, ultimately, it's going to boil down to whether or not they enjoy the work. And, you know, they might be willing to put up with, you know, some of the frustrations and stresses and problems, if they're earning, like we talked earlier, a higher salary. But at some point, you know, that tipping needle might, might kind of tip the balance and, and go the other way. And by that, I mean, you want to build organizations want to try and build positive emotions and positive feelings around the career. If they get too many negative feelings and frustrations and stresses, as I mentioned, and concerns about where they're going in their career. I think that ultimately, when they get that call from the recruiter, they're going to pick up the phone say, Yeah, tell me a little more about that role. And, you know, I'll let you know if it interests me or whatever. Whereas if they're, they're paid competitively, and they're fine with that side of things as and then the nonfinancial or the culture or the workplace or the relationships that they enjoy, are strong and positive, then I think that can go a long way to also helping to retain employees.
19:37
And so initially, we talked about how the manager, right has a lot of this, the ability to get influence and stuff. What are some of the different ways that the manager can be, you know, helping to facilitate the work, they might not have been the hiring party, but now that employees here, right, they have some, there's stakes, right for that manager to keep the team members and stuff up. Like, what could they be doing to? Well,
20:01
I think, you know, to get people started off on the right foot onboarding is a crucial time and that orientation and that relationship that develops in the first, you know, six 912 months can often affect whether that employee will stay long term. So, you know, as soon as they're hired, if they come into work the first day, and nobody helps them, find their desk, and there's no computer for them to work on. And nobody, you know, explains where the cafeteria or the lunchroom or the washrooms are, and they just give them a stack of papers and say, Get Started. You know, it might be frustrating, it might be disappointing for the employee. So I think there's certainly that onboarding process. We have beyond that, you know, including that and beyond it, there's, there's, I think it's important for managers to try and cultivate employee engagement drivers. And these can be things like recognition, autonomy, I mentioned, filling in on things, you know, building team, camaraderie and morale. It's funny, I actually read a, there was an image on LinkedIn just recently that looked at the, you know, the, the discrepancy or the disconnect between what managers and owners and senior executives often think employees want, and what employees actually want. And oftentimes, you know, the the leaders think when an employee leaves, they left for more money, they left for a better opportunity. But when you when you get some of that feedback from employees, it's, you know, there was no recognition. Nobody, nobody ever appreciated what I did. You know, I had no autonomy, my boss was micromanaging me all the time. And I just got frustrated with it. So there are a lot of nonfinancial things that really make a dent have a powerful impact and influence on on what the employees need and want. So I hope I wasn't rambling too much. Got off track.
22:09
No, it was, oh, it was great. So we had also talked about culture starts at the top. Yeah. Right. In our previous conversation, how, how do you really get this through to leaders so that they can set the standard for their organization so that it's easier to retain?
22:30
That's a good another great question. And it really is a commitment. It's a focus and a commitment on on retaining talent. And one of the things we like to do, and I think it's important for leaders and owners to understand is, you know, what, what are the costs associated with turnover? And how is it affecting our business? And, you know, why? Why is it important that we look at retention strategy and implementing, you know, plans and processes to, to improve our retention? Why is all that necessary. And I think if you really examine the true costs of turnover, you know, there's obviously direct costs where you've got administrative costs, you've got hiring costs, you've got things like that. But there's also many, many different other factors. And some, like, you know, the existence of the remaining employees might have to work overtime, you might have to hire temporary staff, you might have drops in productivity, you might have quality issues, you might have customer concerns, when an employee leaves, they don't get the responses they want, the order doesn't receive on received on time. You know, it can affect your brand in the marketplace, your ability to attract and retire. And then beyond that, I think there's there's a lot of what I call value on investment. So everyone's obviously, wanting to look at the return on investment, which I think is very strong. If you're able to reduce employee turnover 15 20% There's a significant return on that. But I also would suggest that there's there's value on investment. And by that I'm talking about things like morale and engagement, which are very difficult to measure. But I think you and I would both agree, Chris, if you have a company that has really high morale, and has really high engagement within their workforce, that that, that that impacts the bottom line, and impacts the success of the company. So that those are things that I think the senior leadership really needs to look at and say, hey, you know, we're, this is costing us too much money and let's, let's try and get some strategy around. How can we improve retention?
24:51
I like the way you frame that value investment. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna steal that. I mean, I'll give you full credit for that a lot. Have one of the last things that I really wanted to dive in was just leading with empathy. Right, we have to be able to understand what what our team does actually want what the best way that we can help them by understanding kind of where they're at, what are some of the things that you've put into play working with other teams to help them be more empathetic as a leader?
25:24
I think there's, I'll go back to some of our earlier points there a little bit, I think the the ability to have regular conversations with employees, you gives you not only builds trust, and builds that relationship, but again, it gives you an opportunity to understand needs, understand stresses, understand challenges, and then it might not might be non work related, you know, the certain employees might be looking after an ageing elder that is, that is, you know, in failing health, and they're concerned about it, they're stressed about it. And they might, you know, have to take that elder, for example, to a doctor's appointment. So as a boss or manager, having the empathy to understand that situation. And, you know, let the employee leave an hour earlier, a couple hours earlier, maybe they come in later in the morning, or something like that, those things can go a long way to help an employee say, hey, you know, they care about me here, they support me here. And I think those are all elements of empathy that, you know, it's understanding and caring and support, and really trying to show an interest in the employee as a person, and and respect that they have needs and issues and challenges, you know, their own personal things, at work, and then beyond work, and understanding those things, and supporting those things can go a long way in the retention.
26:54
All right, Doug, has this been a great conversation? I want to go into? Well, thank you. I want to go into some of my semi rapid fire questions now. For the for the ad. First, what book do you think everyone should read?
27:09
There's actually a great book out called from Bev Kay is her name. And it's called love them or leave them. And let me just grab because I think I might have got the title wrong on that. Love them or lose them. It sounds sorry, love them or lose them. And it's really, I liked your stack. And it's, it's really got some great tips in there great suggestions in there for how you have to love your employees, if you want to keep them and retain them. And if they don't, if they don't see that, you know that their needs are being met, and their people are caring and trying to support them in their career, there's a good chance they may have down the road. So that's that's one of the one that I recommend. Awesome.
27:57
Check that one out. What is next for you professionally? You
28:01
know, as we build our business, Chris, I think there's a few different things that we could do. You know, I think there's there's worked around, maybe helping managers understand this working from home and hybrid working model. And I've had some initial conversations with some colleagues in this area. And that might be an area that we we move on to once we get straightened away with our efforts on retention. That I think because I do believe that the working, not maybe working from home. But at least a hybrid model is probably here to stay for a while. I think employees are pushing hard. And I don't blame them in some regards. Because they don't have the commute into work. They don't have the high gasoline, they don't spend three hours on the freeway every day. So that's that's one thing that I think we might move into the other side is, you know, if there was ways to kind of help managers address and support some of the Mental Health stresses and challenges, that might be something that we could look at as well.
29:10
Finally, where can people find you? Yeah, likely the
29:13
best place is a couple spots, I'll mention a few. Our website is www, manage the word manage. And then the number two, and then the word retain so managed to retain.com. And my personal email address I can maybe provide that is d brown. So D for Doug and then Brown, like the color D Brown at managed to retain.com. And maybe the third thing is you can just do a search for Douglas brown on LinkedIn. And you can get my LinkedIn profile there. We were fairly active on LinkedIn as well. So
29:54
awesome. I'm sure you will get some more connections on your way. I hope so. All right. Thank you for joining me for the conversation.
30:02
Chris. Thanks so much. It was a pleasure speaking with you today.
30:09
If you enjoyed today's episode, I would love a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. And for more information on how to build effective and efficient teams through your leadership, visit leading for.com As always deserve it
Transcribed by https://otter.ai