Employee flight risk

Well, well, well, we have made it to the end of the year safely. Clearly not everyone can say the same. This has been a very risky year overall. There have been many lessons to be learnt and I hope we have learnt them. One of them is to ensure we keep what we have and build upon it. This brings me to today’s topic. The reason we always have to do employee flight risk assessment is so we are not left in the lurch at a critical point in our operations.

As a Human Resource practitioner, employees are the most valuable asset at any company. Employees create and sell the company’s service or product, manage customer interactions, create company culture, and are the face of the brand. I know I am preaching to the converted but I feel it is important to reiterate this.

Onboarding and training of new employees comes at great expense and losing seasoned and top-performing employees is even more costly. That is why it is key that HR professionals understand the factors that contribute to flight risk, and what they can do to minimize flight risk within their organisation.

If an employee feels stuck in their role, underpaid in comparison to their lower-performing or less-tenured peers, or even if they recently received a promotion but didn’t get the raise they desired, they are a flight risk

I know in these ‘Covid-19’ times many companies are letting go of people. There has to be a note of warning. Care needs to be taken to ensure good money that has been spent doing the above is now not wasted.

Read also: Nigeria records 1,664 new COVID-19 cases, total now 94,369

Flight risk can be described as the likelihood that an employee or a top performer will leave the company – typically for a better job opportunity elsewhere. A flight risk employee is typically seeking a higher salary, a promotion, or a new challenge outside your organization, often because they are dissatisfied with their current pay and career opportunity within your organization. There is also the group of those who are really smart and rare skills that keep getting poached for their skills.

If an employee feels stuck in their role, underpaid in comparison to their lower-performing or less-tenured peers, or even if they recently received a promotion but didn’t get the raise they desired, they are a flight risk. A few organisations carry out promotions with much fanfare but very little monetary increment. In those cases, it is natural for them to seek greener pastures elsewhere.

To be succinct, a flight risk employee is one who is dissatisfied enough with their current pay, position, or prospects to look elsewhere for new opportunities. You may use different terms to describe these employees. They may be referred to as, top-performing employees who you recruited for the job they’re in now are very likely to be recruited for other more challenging positions in the future, both from within and outside of your organization. These people are high value and know it. Without proper compensation and career planning, they are a flight risk.

Pathless employees – employees desire a career path, but not all feel they are heading down the course they desire, or at the speed they desire. These employees need mentorship, coaching, and clear goal setting. They may also require course correction and help with expectation setting. Career path discussions can help alleviate flight risk concerns among this group.

Many employees leave because they are not sure what to expect from their being in the organisation. Some HR departments would have actually prepared such documents but then treat it as a secret. When the employee then says they want to leave the plan is then shared.

Some employees just don’t care much about their job anymore. They have become disengaged for various reasons. Things may have gone south, or perhaps it was a bad hire from the start. Regardless, these individuals can be contagious, having a negative impact on company culture and morale. While these employees may be at risk of leaving your organization, their departures may not be a bad thing overall. Sometimes, there may be a bad manager who makes those subordinate to them feel so bad they want to leave even though everything else is fine.

The ideal employee is one who works hard, smart and stays with the company for years. Typically feeling they are compensated fairly along the way. But not all employees feel that way. Seeking to retain every employee is not realistic and it is nearly impossible to do, especially if your company has many employees.

It is valuable to focus retention efforts on top performing employees, those employees who are in critical roles that your organization can’t live without and those who are consistent, honest and dependable, especially those flagged as a flight risk. And before you can begin to discuss solutions for your turnover problems, you must first identify the flight risk employees in your organization who meet these criteria.

Once flight risk employees are identified, you can begin to take corrective action to help improve your likelihood of retaining these highly desirable individuals, including calculating the cost to bring these employees in line with the market.

We must all realise that there is a war for talent even more so now than ever before because more and more depends on the few people left in the work force. You must do an employee flight risk assessment and ensure you minimise the risk by ensuring that what needs to be done is done. We may not always be able to keep everyone, but we must certainly try.

Have a great new year!