Drive down any “industrial parkway” in any city, and you will find them. They proliferate in suburban offices and inner-city convenient stores. It’s a nationwide call: HELP Wanted.
Even the most seasoned human resources professionals struggle to retain key employees. That phenomenon prompted management consultants Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia to form a non-profit, “proactive think- tank” in 1996 called the Workforce Stability Institute.
The institute is based in Greensboro, N.C., but operates online with a group of 12 consultants (or fellows) with expertise in various areas that affect workforce stability. The group completes research and provides mentoring, survey and assessments, seminars and recommendations for a stable workforce.
Chad Cook, the former director of human-resource development for Rubbermaid Inc. in Wooster, joined the institute and now serves as a consultant to his former employer from his Fairlawn office. Cook is the only Ohio member of the institute.
“We are a virtual organization, which exists loosely connected through our knowledge of one another’s skills, abilities and resources,” Cook says. “We have one specific mission in mind: to focus on stabilizing workforces.
“Most all of us have worked in the business environment and recognized a [general] dissatisfaction, not specific to any particular issue, that exists throughout the human-resources area of any organization. Our goal is to pin-point those issues and focus our resources on them and do something about the problems that exist.”
The most frequent comment Cook says he hears from owners/managers is, “Our turnover has gone up, and we don’t know why.” Key employees are moving on to other opportunities.
The institute has found two areas of dissatisfaction lost employees say they feel: career development and communication.
“People are looking for a career,” Cook says. “They are willing to stick with a company if the company is willing to commit to them … to provide resources to their stability with the company and to their career.”
In most organizations, there is a “barrier where information doesn’t flow to the masses,” according to Cook. Typically, employees are interested to know how their company is doing financially, if it is expanding globally and if any broad changes will take place.
“All of these questions are important,” Cook says. “Employees are saying, ‘This is where I earn my money and make a living. I want to feel secure about it. Treat me like a person and help me to become a part of the organization. Let me see the future and the career I can have with you.'”
Cook uses a survey to measure employee’s perceptions of key areas that impact their decision to “stay or go.” He has narrowed the list to 10 based on norms from his research:
- interpersonal communication
- personnel development
- performance feedback
- empowerment
- diversity support
- direction
- job satisfaction
- rewards
- working conditions
- benefits
The last three in the list are organizationwide issues. The other seven are “in the control of management-every supervisor in every worksite” can affect the outcomes of these categories, according to Cook.
As an institute fellow, Cook will also contribute to a monthly Workforce Stability Alert published by the institute. For more information on the newsletter or other reference materials available, check out the Institute’s Web site at www.employee.org.
