Employee retention: is it always good?

Often, a high retention rate is a sign of a company's good workplace policies and strong human resources department. But in what instances might retention not be desirable?

When ...

* The employee is in the wrong job for his/her skill level.

* The employee doesn't understand the employer's expectations because there is no clearly defined job description.

* The employee is not being evaluated based on their job description.

* The employee has a behavior issue that is disruptive to the other staff and environment (i.e., performance issues).

A successful employee retention program is based on keeping quality employees, who have been placed in the right position. Hiring the right people and making sure they know and understand their job description is critical to retention programs.

The first step is to an improved retention rate is to create a detailed job description and present it to the employee or potential hire. Once that has been done, the evaluation tool must be matched to the description, so that the employee is assessed appropriately. If there are performance issues, those must be dealt with immediately by management.

Taking these simple actions can help companies keep quality employees. Generally, employees want to know what you expect of them and communicating this to them will make for better employee relations.

Mario Apruzzese is president of Employees Only in Troy, a Silver-level member of the Detroit Regional Chamber

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