Why your team is quitting...

It can be really difficult to pinpoint why employees (specifically salespeople) just won’t stick around. They may point the finger at leaders or the company; leaders may point the finger at them. But most of the time it isn’t personal or necessarily because they have a bad manager (but maybe an unavailable one). 

Company culture can play a big role, but so does structure. I’m talking about successful onboarding and consistent mentorship. 

As leaders, it’s our duty to set our teams up for success and help them to continue to advance in their careers. There is also a significant effect on profit when turnover is high, and that blame will fall on us.

There are four trends I’ve identified over my 15+ years of hiring and managing people that contribute to turnover:

1. Thorough Onboarding (full control)
2. The Interview (partial control)
3. Tenure, or what is considered tenure nowadays (uncontrollable)
4. Development & Mentorship (2/3 control)

Notice how I identified that within these four trends there are certain ones that we can control and certain ones we can’t or can’t fully. Retention and satisfied employees takes two to tango. 

It may be hard to pinpoint the specific trend within your own organization that needs adjustment, but it’s no secret why most employees move on to other opportunities, and this article will help you identify your trend and keep turnover to a minimum. 

Onboarding’s Role in Employee Retention

There is a strong correlation between what happens during employee onboarding and how long they stay with your company. Research suggests up to 20% of new hires leave in the first 45 days of employment, and that 69% of employees say they are likely to stay with a company for at least three years after a great onboarding experience.

This puts a lot of pressure on these first six weeks but most organizations stop onboarding after just one. 

At Skaled, we try to script out every hour of every day in the first two weeks, and then provide more space for them to work on their own, but still with structure, for the next 4 weeks. 

What I’ve found from putting these calendars in place, is it makes people feel safe, they’re being taken care of, and there is a plan for them to succeed. 

It may seem like “The Interview '' should be the first place to start in identifying why your team is quitting, but onboarding is probably the most critical component in retention. The way you onboard people and the way they’re treated during this time sets the tone for your entire company.

Onboarding employees also cost your company money. It can be hard to see the impact in the day-to-day, but you’re basically paying new employees to train them during this period… so train them and don’t half-ass it. 

The Interview

There is a ton of great content out there around what you should look for in terms of characteristics per role and the types of questions you should be asking. If you’re trying to pinpoint a common thread in high turnover, sometimes it does have to do with your hiring process and loose vetting. 

Quick cheat sheet: 9 questions that reveal natural sales talent and goals.

The three top characteristics I look for in sales candidates are coachability, resilience, and drive.

Coachability: This can be hard to assess in the interview, but what I do is give the candidate feedback during the actual interview and see how they handle it. What’s their response? What’s their body language?

Resilience: Sales is a tough job. You have to be willing to get uncomfortable and make people uncomfortable, and candidly, that takes a tough, resilient personality.

Drive: Finding out a person’s drive in an interview helps you determine if you’re a good match for each other. Obviously, if their goals don’t line up with your company or what you as a leader can realistically help them to achieve, then they’re not going to stick around. 

I’ll also tell you something that can really make you successful in your candidate search and not a lot of companies take advantage of - actually following up with references and talking to previous bosses!

When you’re interviewing someone, they are the best versions of themselves and they could lie. If you talk to their previous leaders, you really get a chance to know what it is going to be like to lead and work with this person. 

These are some of the most valuable conversations you can have when vetting a new hire. But you also don’t want to treat these conversions like a checkbox.. Dig deep to understand the experience and the person.

The Concept of Tenure in 2020 - Forget It

In the past, when looking at resumes and vetting new hires, we would look at how long a person stayed in each position. Did they jump around or were they loyal to the company for at least a few years? This used to be super important, but now it’s becoming harder and harder to find a person who even stays 3 years in a position anymore. Some hiring managers may even look at it as a negative if the candidate doesn’t have a variety of experience.

Keeping this in mind, I look at two numbers when trying to anticipate if an employee is going to stay or go: the 9 month mark and the 18 month mark.

At 9 months, salespeople know enough to feel they have a handle on their current role, the product, and their process, but they’re still just barely starting to get proficient. Some people will leave at this point because they feel like they’re good at their job, but they’re also in this weird place of trying to perform, and they’re outcomes aren’t where they want them to be. So they may blame the product or the company and jump ship.

At 18 months, this is when people are actually in a comfortable groove, and instead of leaning in and tripling down, and striving for that expert level, they start jumping here as well! After spending 18 months of finally getting into a flow and feeling confident, they’re off to fine greener pastures. To me these pastures just don’t exist, because they’re basically going to restart getting into a proficient flow for the next 18 months again.

There is always going to be amazing opportunities that open up, and there is a time and a place to move on, but somehow we’ve learned and taught people to continue in this vicious cycle of ramping up, getting proficient, feeling comfortable, and then starting over in a position that isn’t necessarily a step up or in the right direction for their career. 

Unfortunately, for leaders and managers, this is probably one of the most uncontrollable situations, because it’s really a cultural norm at the moment. The only way to even try to address this is by checking in, knowing your people, and reading the next section to learn how. 

Keeping Your Team Satisfied & Growing

There are three things you can do to not only keep your team satisfied, but actually know them and understand their challenges to help them grow with your company. 

1. Constantly aligning
2. Regular 1-1s
3. Get to know them as a person

Constantly aligning: When we hire people to do a specific job, a lot of the time that job turns into something else during their stint at your company. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes the person is unhappy about it. Constantly aligning and talking about the company goals along with their own, will help you understand how they’re feeling in their position and give you a chance to uncover or prevent their motivations for seeking new employment because they are unhappy with where their role is leading. This should be done at least quarterly.

Regular 1-1s: This goes hand in hand with constantly aligning, but instead of talking about how they feel about their work, regular check-ins should be used to talk about their work, what’s on their plate, and the quality of their work so you can mentor them to do better or congratulate them when they do a good job or hit a milestone. Regular check-ins should be at least every other week, and weekly if it’s possible.

Get to know them as a person: It’s also important to set aside time to talk to your people about themselves and not just about work. This doesn’t have to be as frequent as check-ins and aligning, and can be kind of tough depending on the type of person your employee is. They may not want to talk to you about their personal lives, but it’s important to keep the door open and give them a chance. Forty-six percent of people in an employee happiness survey by 15Five say they wanted advice from their managers on how to improve not only professionally but personally. 

Sometimes, You Just Can’t Keep Everyone

Even if you’re vetting great people before you hire them, give them the keys to success in onboarding, continually check-in and mentor them, sometimes just can’t get a valued employee to stay. And honestly, that is OK.

All of these non-secrets of why your people are leaving have only a degree of controllability. Sometimes, you can do everything right, and a top performer may still leave. The goal is to increase retention to the best of our ability, but it will never be 100%.

A last trend, or really a clue for turnover, I’ll leave you with is be watchful of people who start working in silos. 

You can almost feel something is going to hit the fan if you haven’t talked to someone in a while (especially at smaller companies). You’ll notice them keeping their head down and not working with the team or joint problem solving. It doesn’t matter if they’re getting results or not, if someone starts going dark, they probably have one foot out the door. This would be your chance to schedule some extended 1:1 time. 

-Jake Dunlap