Top Tip 5: Retention - How To Keep Great People

Foxgroves Recruitment Confessions blog has been hijacked by our Employer Top Tips Mini Series! In this 6 week series, we're sharing practical, no-nonsense tips to help you hire smarter, retain better, and stop making the same recruitment mistakes everyone else is making.

I hold a lot of interviews. Hundreds a year. And almost every single one starts the same way. I ask the candidate why they're looking to move. Then I sit back and listen.

I've been doing this for years, and I can tell you that the reasons people leave are remarkably consistent. The same themes come up in different jobs, different sectors, different parts of the country. And the most important thing I've learned from all those conversations is this.

People don't usually leave for one big dramatic reason. They leave because of a series of small things that nobody at their employer was paying attention to.

Let me share what I actually hear, and what employers can do about it.

Reason 1: Progression

This is the single most common reason I hear, and it's the one most employers misunderstand.

When candidates tell me they're leaving for "more opportunity," employers often assume that means a promotion. A bigger title. A jump up the ladder. And sometimes it does. But far more often, "progression" means something much smaller than that.

It might mean more of the work they actually love doing. A bit less of the admin, a bit more of the strategy. The chance to lead a project, not necessarily a team. Permission to specialise in the bit of the job that lights them up. A short course or training programme that develops a skill they care about. A secondment. A stretch assignment. Even just being asked, "what would you like to take on more of this year?"

These are small things. They cost almost nothing. And the employer who doesn't offer them ends up losing good people to the employer who does.

Here's the truth that should stop every manager in their tracks. I regularly place candidates into new roles for the same money they were on before. Same salary, same benefits, same commute. They moved because the new employer offered progression. Real progression. Conversations about where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do. The current employer never asked.

If you can't remember the last time you sat down with one of your team and properly asked them what they want more of, what they want less of, and where they see themselves in two years' time, that's where I'd start.

Reason 2: Culture

This is the second running theme, and it's the hardest to fix quickly.

When candidates talk to me about culture, what they usually mean is one of a few specific things. The atmosphere has soured. A new manager has changed the team dynamic. There's been a redundancy round and the trust hasn't recovered. Flexibility that used to exist has quietly been clawed back. The MD doesn't come out of their office any more.

Culture isn't a "we have a foosball table" issue. It's whether people feel respected, supported, and psychologically safe to do their job. It's whether bullying is dealt with, whether good work is noticed, whether bad managers are held to the same standards as everyone else.

The honest reality is that culture problems are usually known about by the people working there for months before anyone in leadership properly addresses them. By the time good people start leaving over it, the rot has been visible for a long time.

The exit interviews catch it, but exit interviews are too late.

The fix isn't a culture survey. It's regular, honest, two-way conversations with your team. Not the "how are you finding things?" coffee chat. Proper conversations where people feel safe to tell you the truth. Where the response to bad news isn't defensive. Where things get changed when people raise concerns.

It's harder than it sounds. Most employers think they're doing it. Most aren't.

Reason 3: Unfairness

This one comes up so often I've started listening out for it. Candidates rarely use the word "unfairness" directly. What they say is "it's one rule for one and another rule for somebody else."

Certain employees consistently turning up late and nothing being said. One person's poor performance being tolerated for years while everyone else picks up the slack. Bad behaviour from a senior person that would have got anyone else a formal conversation. Favouritism in who gets the interesting projects, the training budget, the flexible working request signed off without question.

This is the one that really erodes respect. And once respect for an employer goes, pride in the work goes with it. People stop putting in the discretionary effort. They start counting hours. They start updating their CV.

The employees most damaged by unfairness are almost always your best ones. The people who hold themselves to high standards are the people most demoralised when they see other people getting away with not doing the same. And when they leave, they don't tell you on the way out that it was unfairness. They say "I just felt it was time for a change."

If you've got a "one rule for them, one rule for everyone else" situation in your team, your good people know about it. The question is whether you're willing to do something about it before they start leaving.

Reason 4: Pay

Pay is the fourth running theme, and it's the one most misunderstood by the employers who lose people over it.

Here's what people actually say when they tell me they're leaving for pay reasons. They almost never say "I want a 20% pay rise." What they usually say is some version of "they haven't given me a cost of living increase in three years and nobody's talked to me about it." Or "I asked for a review six months ago and they never came back to me." Or "I found out the new starter is on more than me and I haven't had a raise in two years."

It's almost never just the money. It's the silence around the money.

If your business genuinely can't afford a pay rise this year, candidates will respect that. As long as you sit down with them, explain the situation honestly, tell them what you're doing to change it, and treat them like adults who can handle the truth.

What people can't handle is silence. Their pay frozen, no explanation, no conversation, no acknowledgement. Meanwhile inflation eats into their take-home and the family budget gets tighter every month. That's what makes them update their CV.

The Common Thread

Look at those four reasons again. Progression. Culture. Unfairness. Pay.

There's a common thread running through all of them; It's that someone wasn't listening. Someone didn't ask. Someone didn't have the conversation. Or worse, someone saw the problem and chose not to deal with it.

The silence is what upsets people. Far more than the substance.

The good news is that the fix for all four is the same thing. Talk to your people. Properly. Regularly. With genuine curiosity about how they're doing and what they need. Take action when you hear something that needs addressing. Be willing to have the uncomfortable conversations with the difficult employees instead of letting your good ones carry the weight.

It is that simple. And it is that rare.

The Stay Interview

Most employers do exit interviews. The conversation when someone's already handed in their notice. By then, the decision is made. They're polite, they're vague, you find out next to nothing useful.

What far fewer employers do is the stay interview. Sitting down with your good people once or twice a year and asking some honest questions. What's keeping you here? What would tempt you away? What's frustrating you? What would you change if you could? What would you like more of next year?

If you don't know the answers to those questions for your best people, you're flying blind on retention. And the day you find out the answers, it'll be because they're handing in their notice.

Take This Further

To help you get ahead of this, I've put together the fifth resource in the Foxgroves Employer Toolkit: The Retention Risk Audit. It walks you through how to spot retention risks early, how to run a proper "stay interview", and what to actually do with what you hear. Download it for FREE here.

What This Means in Practice

If you've got a retention problem, or you've recently lost someone you didn't see coming, the first place to look isn't your salary benchmarking. It's your conversations.

When did you last properly ask each of your team how they're doing? Not the in-passing version. The proper version. What they want more of. What's quietly frustrating them. Where they want their career to go. Whether the small things that matter to them are being noticed. Whether there's something happening in the team that you ought to be dealing with.

If you can't honestly answer those questions about each of your direct reports, your retention risk is higher than you think.

The good news? Most of what stops people leaving costs almost nothing. A conversation. A bit of time. An honest answer about what's possible and what isn't. The willingness to actually do something with what you hear, including dealing with the difficult stuff.

If you'd like to talk through your retention strategy, or you've got a leaver pattern you can't quite explain, drop me a message. Genuinely happy to chat it through.

Until next Sunday,

Lyndsey