Culture Hacker. Green Shane

on the length of the cruise. During our time implementing a new culture within a European cruise ship company, the executive team focused on investing in the crew experience and found an improvement in effort and performance across all disciplines on the ship. When it comes to the amount of effort your employees put in each day, how they feel about their work and who they do it for matters significantly.

      How Culture Determines Employee Retention

      The attitude a person has about coming to work is also important in determining whether they are likely to stay with you. As full employment in many industries is coming closer to reality, employees simply have more options. What makes our current situation so interesting is that at the same time, the Millennial workforce is becoming the largest employee group. This generation and those who will come after them are more and more comfortable moving between jobs and industries to maximize their earning potential and find a greater sense of meaning in their work. That last point is critical; members of the next generation of employees will continue to leave jobs, managers, and companies that do not make them feel valued, provide purpose, or help them grow. In other words, they leave companies that do not give them a great experience.

      It is also important to recognize that you are not just competing with and losing talent to those within your industry. The reality of a global economy and an informed workforce is that talent transcends most industries. The founder of the Future of Work community, Jacob Morgan, says: “We are seeing a global talent war, not only in a particular industry or location, but with employees around the world.” He goes on to say, “What can an organization do to retain and keep top talent? Focus on employee experience and create an environment where employees want to show up, not necessarily where they need to show up.”21

      With workers more comfortable and willing to leave you if you do not meet their expectations, the threat of turnover is real. The costs of such turnover are striking, both to the bottom line and, psychologically, to the staff who remain. In 2016, Julie Kantor, president of Twomentor, LLC suggested that the hard costs can range anywhere from 16 % to 213 % of a person's salary, when you take into account training, onboarding, interview expenses, and advertising costs. Soft costs include lowered engagement for remaining employees when someone leaves, loss of productivity for new hires (it can take up to two years to reach the same level of productivity as someone who has left), impact on morale, gossip, and less effective service.22

      One company that struggled with turnover due to a poor culture is CHG Healthcare Services. The following case study illustrates the changes that CHG made to its culture and the impact those changes had on its turnover rates.

      Case Study: CHG Healthcare Services

      CHG Healthcare Services is a healthcare staffing organization that serves thousands of hospitals throughout all 50 states in the U.S.23 In an industry plagued with high turnover, between 50 % and 60 % per year, CHG has not only managed to retain talent, but has also become a constant fixture on some of the most sought after company recognition lists. 2016 was the company's seventh consecutive year on Fortune's “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, and eighth consecutive year on the “Training Top 125” list, to name a few. However, this success was not always the case, and the company experienced many obstacles when trying to rework their company culture.

On a recent Culture Hacker podcast, Kevin Ricklefs, senior vice president of Talent Management, shared that the company had over 50 % turnover 15 years ago. This costly business issue was the catalyst for making a change. “When we wanted to reduce turnover, we started by asking our leaders and employees their opinion of our culture,” Kevin said.15 Giving employees a voice created a culture of feedback and a sense of ownership in the organization that is still present today. This focus on feedback positively impacted the leadership and communication style of the organization. As Kevin describes, “We give the employees every opportunity to have a voice in the company, and they continue to give us feedback and continue to help us be better.”15

      But giving employees a voice about the type of employee experience they desired was only part of the process. The real lesson here is that CHG was willing to make some tough decisions to show that they were serious about making a positive cultural shift. Some of the toughest decisions included letting go of managers who were not willing to change or support the new empowered workforce at CHG. These tough decisions are why so many companies like to talk about cultural change, but so few undertake the necessary steps to make it a reality.

      While the thought of changing culture can be overwhelming, Kevin provides some advice to the brave souls undertaking the journey: don't try to go it alone. “Culture is everyone's responsibility because it is about the employee experience. We train the employees and leaders on how to build a good culture and what we mean by a good culture. This aligns everyone in the organization.”15

      For me, the best organization has an employee mindset where the experience of both internal and external customers exceeds expectations, every employee delivers his or her best, and there is below-industry turnover because the people want to be there. Quite simply, this must be the focus of every person owning or running a business today. Gallup in 2016 stated that “highly engaged work units outperformed disengaged work units by 10 % in customer loyalty and engagement, 21 % in profitability, and 20 % in productivity.”24 The business case is clear and compelling.