It seems everyone I know professionally is currently recruiting for a position or trying to help a friend who is recruiting. In the Bay Area, you can’t throw a stick without hitting at least eight openings. On the 101 corridor, we are also back to the flush times of billboards advertising that companies are hiring.
In short, the tech employee is king again, though not everyone realizes it yet.
Companies looking to hire today must balance finding the best candidate because they may not be able to find additional candidates later and not take too long to decide or their preferred candidate will be already hired somewhere else.
Even if a company isn’t looking to expand operations, they are still affected by the upswing in hiring. An unsatisfied employee is a short-term employee. This doesn’t even necessarily mean they’re unhappy, just not happy enough. Instead of asking “why would my employee leave?” they need to ask “what incentive have I given my employee to stay?” These could be two different answers. Beyond pay and potential equity, there is the position itself. Because what’s important to employees varies and frankly some people are too dense to notice, here is a quick list of possible factors driving your employee retention or employee churn:
Pay – do you know what the market rate currently is?
Stock options/equity –Do your employees have skin in the game? Most tech companies have at least some type of stock option program, but there are a few founders that don’t understand the value.
Respect – no one should ever be disrespected. Period. If you or your company doesn’t respect its employees, the exodus is already in the works.
Career Path Positive – if you hire a person to do what they’ve done over and over again before and there’s no growth potential, look for a person who wants a job, not a career path. This doesn’t mean they’re a bad employee. They could be very good at this particular role and very happy in it.
When I hire or take over a department, I ask each employee what his/her career goal is. It doesn’t mean their position is going to change to only accommodate their desires, but I do try to incorporate some responsibilities that will help them achieve their overall goal. For example, in one department I inherited, the database marketing manager said she would like to eventually be in product marketing and wanted to create content. We added creating the customer newsletter to her responsibilities. Interestingly, the first person to comment on her newly-displayed writing skills was the vice president of product marketing.
Lifestyle Fit – Speaking from personal experience, I work a lot. A whole lot. I interact with Europe on a regular basis, and in previous roles have regularly interacted with Europe and Asia. I usually start reading email at 5:30am and a few times a week have conference calls at that time. I also work until I go to bed. I’m perfectly happy with this arrangement because, frankly, I have trouble shutting my brain off. However, if I ever worked for someone who said I had to work 15 hours a day, I would be very unhappy. Other people have scheduling priorities they must meet. It’s a tricky legal line to walk, but finding and keeping employees that fit your companies priorities will help retain employees who are critical to growing your business.
The Perks – in some ways, the message the perk sends is more important than the perk. I was at Mashery during a technical rollout. The guys in engineering worked until 2-3am. Two days later, the company brought in a masseuse and sent an email for everyone to sign up for chair massages. It was a very classy thing to do. I’m sure it didn’t cost much, but the message it sent was “we know you worked hard and we value it.”
Behind an economic stall, the biggest threat to the tech sector’s growth is a shortage of qualified employees. We are already seeing it in Silicon Valley. In the New York area, there are companies trying to convince potential employees to work for equity only with promises that they will be rich in the future. This will only last for so long. Employees may not always need to feel loved, but they won’t be with you long-term if they don’t feel respected. Giving them a reason to stay should be the cornerstone of your employment policy.
Fork In The Road 