In our efforts as a consultative sales training and coaching organization to comprehensively assist our clients to achieve their business goals, we cooperate with professionals and organizations that provide services aligned with our philosophy and outlook. I’ve been fortunate to work together with Marc Levine of Retensa, who has been helping organizations like Citibank, Prudential, and Kinko’s achieve results by developing business and developing people for over fifteen years.
Marc has been a regional sales rep and sales director in technology and consulting services always producing superior results. Marc’s also been an executive coach and communications trainer helping companies engage people and reduce costs.
Currently he is the Senior Engagement Manager at Retensa focusing on helping companies improve the employee experience and retain top talent.
Monika D’Agostino: Hi Marc, and thank you so much for talking to us today. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about on-boarding and the high cost of employee turnover. Let’s dive into it.
Monika: Why do clients work with you?
Marc Levine: Our clients come to us understand why people join their company, why they stay, and why they leave. Next we help them build and execute retention strategies which may include mentorship programs, manager development and leadership coaching.
Monika: People often speak about the costs of turnover? What is the real cost of turnover?
Marc: Turnover costs can range from 20% to 150% of an employee’s salary in direct and indirect costs. An employee making $100,000 would cost $20,000 -150,000 to replace. Think of the costs of recruiting a sales rep from external costs of recruiting to internal costs of the time for each person involved in the process. Training costs are high and time consuming. New sales reps may take 2-6 months to reach productivity. Finally there is the opportunity costs of lost revenue in the territory. We help clients determine their true cost of turnover.
Monika: What are our clients struggling with the most?
Marc: Our clients struggle in a few areas. The overall theme is helping them make data driven decisions instead of guessing as to what their employees think and feel about the organization.
For some morale is down and they don’t know why. They’ve tried different things to improve morale and nothing has changed. We talk to their employees and capture an honest understanding of what is happening and present this information to the client. Studies show that the executive team can receive less than 10% of the true frontline employee experience.
Other clients want more efficiency in capturing their exit interview data and need help to automate their reporting. Exit interviews are one of the best sources of capturing the employee experience. Unfortunately, people can be reluctant to be honest with HR. We help clients separate the noise of the vocal minority from how people truly feel about leadership, benefits, individual managers, the company brand, and their coworkers.
Of course others are losing their talent and don’t know what will resonate with them to keep them. We may provide retention skills training that allows managers to see the signs that an employee is about to leave.
Monika: What’s the most overlooked factor in turnover?
Marc: The manager. People leave managers, not companies. Your relationship with your direct manager is the biggest factor. Money is usually third to sixth on the list of why people leave companies. However, with sales reps “messing” with their compensation, which causes them to lose trust in the organization, will also be very high on their list of why they leave.
Monika: Tell us a bit about Retensa:
Marc: For 15 years we’ve been helping organizations attract, motivate, and retain their best people. Through our extensive research we created a lens to view the employee experience. Our “Employee Life Cycle” model is taught in colleges and Fortune 500 companies. Currently we work with clients in 40 countries and in 13 languages, from Nestle to high growth companies with 30 employees. Our vision is that “everyone works in a job where they feel engaged and inspired.”
We’re here to help companies keep the talent that they want to keep. Your readers should feel free to email me with questions, or anyone would like to receive a white paper on the cost of turnover please contact me at Marc@retensa.com.
Monika: Thank you for your time, Marc. I hope that our readers now have a better understanding of why on-boarding and retention is so important to their success.
Tags: Employee Retention, hiring, sales on-boarding