Organisations go to a great deal of trouble to attract the most suitable people. It makes sense then to follow up the investment in new recruits by taking care to retain employees.

There is no shortage of information about retention strategies – Google scholar lists 16000 articles for 2015 alone.
Strategies to retain employees include encouraging humour, family support, career opportunities, good managers, and development opportunities. No shortage of advice.

Here is a way to reveal what your retention strategies really include. Take the group of your longest-serving employees and ask yourself.

“Do these employees best demonstrate our organisation purpose, values, and the behaviours we most value?”
“Are our longest-serving employees our “best”. Are they our A Team?”

If your answers to the questions are “Yes”, congratulations!
If your answer is “No”, you have a retention strategy which is successful in retaining mediocrity. You may want to do something about that.

By Joe Moore. Joe is the founder and principal of Kimber Moore Associates. He and his team are highly skilled in helping leaders and staff deal with uncertainty, change, complexity and conflicts. You can contact Joe here