A genuine—and understandable—fear among roofing contractors is that valuable employees will leave. To avoid this from happening, many contractors have developed various programs to entice employees to stay though the programs' success levels vary greatly.
In a new book, The Alliance, Reid Hoffman, founder of the social networking site LinkedIn, says it's time to stop expecting employees to stay with one company for the long term and instead take a "tour of duty" approach to all employer-employee relationships.
In a recent Harvard Business Review article discussing the book, Hoffman, along with co-authors Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh, write that in an age where companies are quick to lay off workers in lean times, " … the lack of job security indirectly creates incentives for employees to become more adaptable and entrepreneurial [and] the lack of mutual benefit encourages the most adaptable and entrepreneurial to take their talents elsewhere. The company reaps some cost savings but gains little in the way of innovation and adaptability."
Hoffman argues forming mutually beneficial alliances with employees and agreeing on a specified time frame of retention is a better approach. Hoffman suggests an initial four-year "tour of duty" for integral employees with a discussion at two years.
He says: "The company gets an engaged employee who's striving to produce tangible achievements for the firm and who can be an important advocate and resource at the end of his [or her] tour or tours. A tour of duty … establishes a realistic zone of trust. Lifelong employment and loyalty are simply not part of today's world; pretending that they are decreases trust by forcing both sides to lie.
"The problem with most employee retention programs is they have a fuzzy goal (retain 'good' employees) and a fuzzy time frame (indefinitely). Both types of fuzziness destroy trust: The company is asking an employee to commit to it but makes no commitment in return. In contrast, a tour of duty serves as a personalized retention plan that gives a valued employee concrete, compelling reasons to finish [his or] her tour and that establishes a clear time frame for discussing the future of the relationship."
The ideas presented in The Alliance are at a minimum thought-provoking and at the maximum revolutionary. Changing the dialogue between you and your employees could result in less stress in the hiring and retention processes and a clearer goal-oriented approach toward company success.
Ambika Puniani Bailey is editor of Professional Roofing and NRCA's associate executive director of communications and production.
