Many employees and potential candidates have been in a holding pattern over the past year. Uneasy with the outside world, people were hesitant to make a move during the pandemic. As we make our move to the other side post-COVID-19, we’ve seen more movement in talent in the agriculture and food industry. Employees are restless and looking for new challenges. While this is great news if you’re recruiting, this can be a new urgent challenge for human resource (HR), managers and leaders who are working to retain their top employees.
Retention is and has been a vital long-term strategy for HR managers in agriculture. Retaining top employees eases the recruitment and training workload, while supporting company stability. When we conducted the Agribusiness HR Review during the pandemic about their planned recruitment practices, companies said they would focus on employee retention practices before other recruitment methods.
Measuring employee satisfaction and engagement can help keep the pulse on the organization. Agriculture companies report the use of internal surveys as the primary method to measure employee satisfaction, followed by an external survey. Companies also said they look at staff retention to measure employee satisfaction.
Eighty percent of agribusinesses conduct exit interviews. While these are an extremely valuable source of information, it’s too late for that employee now! That is where stay interviews become a proactive means of assessing employees’ satisfaction and propensity to stay. Stay interviews may be a simple conversation between manager and employee to check how things are going, what projects keep them energized and what are their least favorite activities.
Stay interviews may uncover hurdles the employee is facing that a manger can assist with, as well as provide areas of growth, suggests Rachael Powell, AgCareers.com HR & Compensation Solutions Manager. Stay interviews can also assist the employee.
“Employees who feel their employer genuinely cares about their employment and wants to see them succeed are more likely to stay with the organization,” notes Powell.
As we see an increasing comfort with people changing jobs post-COVID-19, now may be the perfect time for your organization to conduct stay interviews.
For more on the latest recruitment, retention, and HR best practices in agriculture, register now for the AgCareers.com HR Roundtable, August 3 and 4. Discover more with Roundtable sessions on employee well-being, company culture and more at agcareers.com/conferences.cfm.
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