Deadly Sins of Employee Retention

As my company grew into the hundreds, my old leadership style didn't work anymore. The common sense techniques in Mark's book make my life easier, my employees happier, and my business more successful. The Deadly Sins of Employee Retention is mandatory reading for our managers. I learn more every time I pick it up. -- Dennis Hoffman, President, CashBox

This is a superb book for some one who is just starting to investigate the subject of employee retention. It is short, easy to understand, and flows well. The information that is provided is practical and timely. A quick read on the subject of employee retention for those who do not have a lot of time to find, read, and analyze the multitude of books available on the subject.

I found this book not only helpful, but also readable, useful and manageable -- in a way that most wordy, lengthy business books are not. It offers concrete, helpful, immediately-applicable advice for dealing with the biggest headache of management--keeping and motivating good employees. I plan to use it as a constant reference tool. Mark Murphy's work has been very helpful to me overall--he's a fresh-thinking guru on management issues.

This book is helping us win the war for talent. I'm CEO of a company with 3,000 employees and I make every one of our leaders read this book. In the first month of our leaders implementing the techniques in this book, we've seen a 60% reduction in our turnover rates. We've saved over $1 million in turnover costs by reading a book that costs $12.99. Truly amazing. Their concept of "Shoves and Tugs" is absolutely brilliant and the most innovative thinking I've seen on the topic of employee retention. By distinguishing between the reasons why people leave and why they stay, we've uncovered the root-cause problems that were causing people to quit. And no employee survey we ever conducted got us even 5% of the information we uncovered with this simple "Shoves and Tugs" script. And I'm so grateful that they give the exact script that every manager needs to use with their employees. We have many managers that don't have much experience with advanced employee retention efforts, and this book makes it so easy to implement. They also give the exact process and exact script to use when someone quits but you don't want them to leave. Last week we used this script with 3 people who wanted to quit and we got every one of them to stay. This is an exceptional book. It's an easy and entertaining read, and it's loaded with hands-on practical tools that leaders can implement immediately. It's also got the most innovative thinking I've ever seen on employee retention, and I've seen everything out there. Whether you're a CEO or a first-time supervisor, this book is a must-read.

Too many business books are opinionated - and use loose magpie collections of evidence to support the writers' sexy headlines and simple main arguments. Here, by contrast, Murphy and partner Burgio-Murphy work from the ground up, using a vast survey of 100,000 business leaders (mid-level up to senior) to build a picture of what employment and HR strategies help minimise the risk of a good employee moving on. (The people they interviewed were responsible for 20,000 hires during the survey period - and the success of these was tracked over time.) The authors highlight five top reasons why organisations have a demonstrably poor retention rate of new employees. In order the reasons for 'moving on' are; - Coachability (26%): The ability to accept and implement feedback from bosses, colleagues, customers and others. - Emotional Intelligence (23%): The ability to understand and manage one's own emotions, and accurately assess others' emotions. - Motivation (17%): Sufficient drive to achieve one's full potential and excel in the job. - Temperament (15%): Attitude and personality suited to the particular job and work environment. - Technical Competence (11%): Functional or technical skills required to do the job. In hindsight, many interviewers look back and realise that they saw the signs back at the interview stage, but were perhaps distracted by other issues - the technical competencies, the need to fill the gap quickly - and this volume encourages managers and supervisors to help employees operate more functionally within the organisation. The inherent argument in this book is that employees are often "left to their own devices" once they're hired, and yet with some simple interventions, (a little shoving and tugging) in the form of coaching, mentoring and discussion in the above skills, the outcome can be happy for all parties. Great advice, just 102 pages (you want longer?) and a negligible entry price. Recommended.