Are you Ready for the January Quitting Season?
As we hurtle toward year’s end, it’s a time to think about employee retention, so your star performers are motivated to return to work after the summer break.
November is the time when we start to look at how many weeks we have left of the calendar year. A little bit of stress and frustration can set in when we think of everything we need to do before the year is out.
However, this is also a good time to think about retention strategies because January is a common time for employees to start thinking about moving on to a new role.
‘January is a common time for employees to start thinking about moving on into a new role.’
Let’s start by thinking about ways to prepare for the new year. We want to:
End of Year Checklist
At Amplify HR, we tend to get really busy this time of year. All of a sudden, our clients look at their to-do list and say, ‘oh my goodness, there are all these things I said that I was going to do for my people and culture this year, and I haven’t done them yet,’ or ‘hey, can you help me to get some of this off my list?’
What’s on those lists?
These things are already pretty big items, on top of the usual activities happening in your business and the general responsibilities in your role.
It’s a good idea to think about ways to clear your desk, so to speak. You may not get rid of everything, but try to clear your desk so you can have a break at the end of December and come back in the new year feeling refreshed and ready to get started on some new challenges.
Master List
One thing you can do is create a master to-do list of all your tasks. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of sitting down with no distractions and brainstorming with yourself. What are all the things you haven’t gotten to this year or forgotten about? You may have to go back to that list a couple of times.
‘What are all the things you haven’t gotten to this year or forgotten about?’
Some people get important things popping up in their minds at 3am. If you’re one of these people, keep a pen and paper next to your bed so you can make a note. Create that big to-do list over a couple of days, and once you’ve got most of it down you can use an Urgent-Important Matrix.
Urgent-Important Matrix
An Urgent-Important Matrix is a simple chart on a single piece of paper. Draw a square and divide it into four boxes. The horizontal side is your ‘urgent’ axis. The vertical side is ‘important’.
Look at your list and think, how urgent and important are each of these things? And write them into the relevant boxes. Obviously, the things that you rate as highly urgent and important are the things you want to prioritise first.
Delegation
A key benefit of the Urgent-Important Matrix exercise is that it helps you determine what you can delegate. Are there things that are important but not urgent? These may be great candidates for delegation. Or perhaps some things are really urgent but not important. You still need to get them done, but can you delegate them?
Technology
Another way to get things off your list is to use technology. We’ve had a big shift in technology capabilities over the last 12 to 24 months. What’s on your to-do list that could be approached using tech?
I did some videos recently on LinkedIn, and later, over coffee, one of my friends asked, ‘Was that you or was that AI?’ I said, ‘No, it was me, but you know what? I probably need to think about using AI for videos. Because in two, three or definitely five years, many people will be using an AI avatar for videos.’
As much as that might make me feel a bit uncomfortable, I still need to start thinking about these things. Be critical with your to-do list and see if you can use technology for any tasks. Even if you’ve been hesitant about it in the past or haven’t looked into it, maybe this is the time to start.
Notes for the New Year
My other tip on clearing your desk for the end of the year is to write notes for yourself in the new year. I do this by scheduling emails to myself, or I put them in the diary for one, two, or three months down the track whenever I need to take action on them. I always get excited when my past self reminds my future self of things that need to happen!
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‘I always get excited when my past self reminds my future self of things that need to happen!’
It’s a great way to clear things out of your mind because otherwise, they’ll sit somewhere niggling at you as something you failed to do. And there’s a really important psychological benefit to feeling that you’ve ended the year well. It allows you to relax, refresh, and return in the new year with a sense of a new beginning.
New Year Strategy
The other thing you can start to think about, from a people and culture perspective, is your strategy around retention. The new year can be a crucial time for this. January is often cited as one of the most popular months for job searching.
That’s because people return from their holidays with their New Year’s resolutions – they want to improve their careers, perhaps change their careers, or perhaps they’ve come to the conclusion that they just can’t keep doing their job any more and want to move on.
January Staff Turnover
Research indicates that 20% to 30% of people include finding a new job or advancing their career as one of their New Year’s resolutions. We also know that organisations report higher staff turnover rates in January and February because people are starting to seek new opportunities. If your organisation offers end-of-year bonuses, sometimes people wait for them before moving on.
‘We also know that organisations report higher staff turnover rates in January and February because people start seeking new opportunities.’
Plan Ahead
It’s important to start thinking about all of those things. Review your company data and look at the last few years. What month did you have the most people leaving? If the answer is the new year, now is the time to prevent some of those resignations, if not all of them. We know that turnover is super expensive and inconvenient for business owners and leaders.
Calculate Employee Turnover
One of our most popular blog posts is Easy Calculation for Employee Turnover. As I mentioned in that post, turnover can cost anywhere from 50% to 200% of the person’s salary. That really wide range is because it can depend on the type of the role, how long the person has been in the role, and the level of skills and experience that person has.
Let’s say they all earn $100,000 – an easy number to use for calculations. We know it will cost you between 50% and 200% of their salary to replace them. That equates to $50,000 to $200,000 per employee. Suddenly, we’ve got a good financial imperative from a business point of view to try to save that money.
How do we keep our great people?
Culture
Make sure that you have a strong, engaging company culture. That’s the whole point of our podcast and blog – identifying ways to make a workplace that engages and inspires. Hopefully, you’ve been listening to some other episodes and have some good action items on what you can do with your company culture.
Rewards & Recognition
This is a great time of year to recognise and reward employees before the year ends. Take some time to sit down and think about what everyone achieved this year. How can you recognise that?
For some organisations, that’s done at a whole staff event, like a Christmas party. For others, it could mean the leaders sitting down and writing their team members a personalised note on what they appreciate about that employee.
Employee Surveys
Another retention strategy is to conduct stay interviews. You ask employees a set of open questions about the things that would encourage them to stay in the organisation. You can also ask about the things that might lead them to leave.
Or you could send out end-of-year staff engagement surveys, pulse checks, which are smaller surveys aimed at understanding how employees feel right now and getting some feedback that you can action.
Have your say
Do you have a staff retention strategy ready for the new year? We’d love your feedback on this series, just head on over to Amplify HR or connect with Karen on LinkedIn.
Fractional Integrator | General Manager | Implementor | Giving you back time
2moThanks for sharing Karen Kirton that’s a great article