Top Ten: Retention

With the impending signs of an large increase in turnover in 2015, now is the time to be dusting off the old books on employee retention. Here at HRville, we thought we’d save you some of the hustle and offer you some of the most tried and tested approaches that have served many a company in the past.

1. Buy a chocolate fountain for the office. It is a little known but powerful secret that no worker has ever voluntarily resigned from an office that provided a chocolate fountain.

2. Coat the floors in mild adhesive. Employees will be discouraged from leaving their desks for any reason, and the delirium from the fumes will frustrate any covert job searching while in the office.

3. Move your office to new premises where the only way in is a single upwards moving escalator. Soon they will tire of escape attempts and settle into their new lives.

4. Tell everybody their Secret Santa partners 12 months in advance so they’ll feel terrible if they try to change jobs.

5. A horse’s head on their desk should make the message quite clear: no horsing about during office hours. Append a Post-It note with “We appreciate you! :)” on it to also let them know their contribution is valued.

6. Temporarily take the office to a war zone as a private military contractor. The horrors you share will surely forge an unbreakable bond, and cultivate excellent employee retention.

7. Hire elderly actors to start spontaneous conversations with likely defectors about the values of loyalty and gratitude.

8. Move your office aboard a boat, then refuse to dock anywhere.

9. Don’t be above a little bit of blackmail here and there. Every embarrassing secret is a potential weapon. “How would your new employer like to hear about that time with the monkey and the vat of butter? That’s what I thought.”

10. Hire a company ‘idiot’ to serve as the butt of all jokes and engineer a steady string of amusing misfortunes to occur to them. People will feel better about their own situations, and feel less inclined to look for a new job.

About the author

Jerome Langford

Jerome is a graduate in Philosophy from St Andrews, who alternately spends time writing about HR and staring wistfully out of windows, thinking about life’s bigger questions: Why are we here? How much lunch is too much lunch? What do you mean exactly by ‘final warning’?