1. Retaining Employees Café
Facilitator notes:
Instructions: Proceed to the next slide once the presentation is visible to the participants.
Insert client logo here

2. Welcome Why do people leave our organization?
(please chat in your response)
Facilitator notes:
Say: Good morning/afternoon. This is ________ from ________ . We’ll be starting today’s session at ____. As you come online, please take a moment to answer the question on your screen via the chat panel. We’ll give your colleagues a few more moments to join our session and then we’ll get started. Thank you.
Note: There is no need to debrief the question now—it will be discussed several slides later. However, use this time to make note of the most common and least common responses so you are prepared to debrief later.
CHAT

3. Introductions NAME NAME Title Title Facilitator notes:
[Time: 1 minute]
Instructions: Introduce yourself and any co-facilitator or web conferencing producer who might be helping with the session. Acknowledge the relative size of the audience, and consider having participants chat in their locations if this information is not readily apparent. The point is to give people a sense of who is participating in the session today.
NAME
Title
NAME
Title

4. Participation tips Limit electronic interruptions.
Take part in the discussion.
Listen carefully to what is being said.
The CHAT PANEL is enabled for the session.
Use the RAISE HAND feature to volunteer to speak.
Put your phone on mute when not speaking.
CHAT
Facilitator notes:
[Time: 1 minute]
Say: Today’s session has been designed to be an interactive experience. To get the most from the session, here are a few tips about how to participate.
Instructions: Highlight any web conferencing features to be used, such as the chat panel and raise hand feature. Note that the raise hand feature may not be necessary if the group is relatively small. With a small group, participants could volunteer by simply unmuting themselves and speaking up. If you do choose to use the raise hand feature, explain, “When I invite you to raise your hand during the session, I mean you can click on the raise hand button if you want to share your thoughts with the group.”
Say: It appears we are ready to start.
RAISE HAND

5. Employee retention challenges
Why do people leave our organization?
Facilitator notes:
[Time: 5 minutes]
Say: Let’s start by taking a look at the opening question.
Instructions: Debrief the icebreaker question regarding participants’ perceptions about why people leave our organization. Briefly summarize participants’ responses.
Ask volunteers to raise hands to share their thoughts about reasons why some people decide to leave our organization. Take a few responses, then summarize what people have said. Then set context for the session, for example:
Say: The saying is true: It’s not technology or financial assets that makes an organization great—it’s people. Our success depends on being able to retain people—especially our best and brightest.
RAISE HAND

6. Today’s objectives Help you: Create great jobs
Create a culture that promotes retention
Prevent burnout
Facilitator notes:
[Time: 1 minute]
Say: Today’s session focuses on three important aspects of retaining talented employees. Specifically, we are going to discuss how to:
Create great jobs that engage and motivate people
Create a culture that promotes retention
Prevent employee burnout

7. CREATE GREAT JOBS RETAINING EMPLOYEES Facilitator notes:
[Time: 1 minute]
Say: Let’s begin by discussing how to create great jobs. People’s needs evolve as they become more experienced in their positions. So consider how you can continually adjust your best employees’ roles so they don’t seek jobs elsewhere.

8. What should Eva consider in order
Sculpt jobs
What should Eva consider in order
to address Rohan’s needs and interests?
Eva is Director of Training. Since she hired Rohan three years ago, he has been the top-rated instructor in her department. But Eva knows that Rohan is starting to tire of teaching the same four management courses. He has also told Eva he would like to help develop new programs, although he lacks a formal instructional design background. In addition, there are currently no open positions in Eva’s instructional design group.
Facilitator notes:
[Time: 8 minutes]
Say: Let’s consider this short scenario. What are some things that Eva could do to address Rohan’s needs and interests?
Instructions: Give participants one minute to review the scenario, then ask them to chat in their ideas about what Eva should do. Highlight the following ideas if participants do not mention them:
Eva should ask herself how she could add more of what Rohan enjoys to his current role. In this situation, Eva might not be able to fully accommodate Rohan’s desire to develop new programs. However, she could think of ways to help Rohan get closer to satisfying his interests, such as:
Provide him with opportunities to learn more about instructional design, such as funding for formal training or relevant conferences
Offer a part-time “internship” with the instructional design group
Eva should ask herself if there is something that doesn’t align with Rohan’s interests that she can remove. In this situation, Eva could remove some of the monotony of teaching the same courses over and over; for example, by inviting him to teach programs on other topics.
Eva should think about what other things Rohan values. For instance, if he values personal time, Eva could offer a compressed workweek to allow him to pursue other passions.

9. Conduct stay interviews
Facilitator notes:
[Time: 10 minutes]
Say: In discussing the scenario, we considered the information a manager needs in order to tailor a job to suit an employee’s interests and motivations. The best way to get that information is to periodically conduct stay interviews with team members.
Part of your pre-work for this session was to conduct a stay interview with a key employee using Part I of the “Guide for Conducting a Stay Interview and Sculpting a Job.” Review your responses and chat in something new you learned about that employee’s interests, motivators, or needs—something that would be useful in keeping that employee engaged. Remember to keep the identity of the person you interviewed private.
Instructions: Give participants a minute to review the guide and chat in their responses. Then ask for one or two volunteers to raise hands if they are willing to share what they learned, and how they might use that information to help sculpt their employees’ jobs. For example, “I learned that my employee is a serious painter and that she would rather work part time so she could spend more time doing her art. I’m now figuring out how much of a reduction in time we could offer her and still meet our team objectives.”
Say: Now that we’ve seen how stay interviews can provide the raw material for sculpting an employee’s job, think about how you might build stay interviews into your leadership practice. Consider your responses to the following questions:
Would it be useful to interview everyone on your team, or only certain key employees?
How often would you imagine conducting stay interviews? Periodically, or only when you see signs an employee might be at risk of leaving?
Would stay interviews form part of a formal development discussion, or would they be a separate conversation?
Instructions: Time permitting, ask one or two volunteers to share their ideas about how they’d like to use stay interviews going forward. Alternately, encourage participants to makes some notes about how they intend to use stay interviews in the future.

10. CREATE A GREAT CULTURE RETAINING EMPLOYEES Facilitator notes:
[Time: 1/2 minute]
Say: In addition to great jobs, many employees cite “culture”—more specifically, a team’s “microculture”—as one of the most important reasons they stay with a company. Let’s discuss what you can do to create a team culture that fosters retention.

11. Develop a meaningful microculture
Facilitator notes:
[Time: 10 minutes]
Say: Part of your pre-work for this session was to survey your team’s microculture using the “Worksheet to Improve Your Microculture.” Review your responses in Step 1: Survey your microculture. Chat in something your employees said would contribute to an ideal team culture.
Instructions: Give participants a minute to review Step 1 and chat in their responses. Then ask for volunteers to raise hands if they are willing to discuss how they reacted to their employees’ comments. Ask, for example, if they:
Share their team’s views about what an ideal culture looks like
Have the power to foster the ideal culture their team seeks
Say: Now take a minute to review your responses to Step 2: Develop a vision for an ideal microculture. Is there an area where you see an important gap between your current team culture and your employees’ ideal culture? Chat in “yes” or “no.”
Instructions: Note and mention whether the majority of responses are yes or no. If majority are yes, point out that the best managers are always looking for ways to improve their team’s culture. If the majority are “no,” point out that even the most positive team cultures need continual reinforcement.
Ask for one or two volunteers to raise hands if they’re willing to share an aspect of team culture they want to foster and give specific ideas for addressing that aspect. If time permits, ask the group if they have additional ideas about how to address that aspect of team culture.
If time permits, suggest that participants take a minute or two to consider any changes or additions they might make to the ideas for implementing culture change they noted in Step 3 of the “Worksheet to Improve Your Microculture.”

12. PREVENT BURNOUT RETAINING EMPLOYEES Facilitator notes [Time: 1 minute]
Say: In the last section, we focused on developing a team culture and leadership practices that promote retention. Let’s turn to another issue that can affect retention—employee burnout. Not surprisingly, it’s your best, most conscientious employees—those you most want to keep—who are most susceptible.

13. Recognize signs of burnout
Dan is an IT supervisor whose team is currently responsible for implementing a new telecommunications system for his company.  Most team members seem energized by the project—except Nina, his most senior project manager. Nina is usually upbeat and friendly, but has been short- tempered and irritable in recent team meetings. Dan also notices that she has started coming into work very early, skips lunch, and is usually still at her desk when Dan leaves for the night. 
Dan suspects that Nina may be at risk of burnout. 
What should he do to help?
Facilitator notes:
[Time: 6 minutes]
Say: Let’s consider this brief scenario. What are some things Dan could do to understand and address Nina’s behavior?
Instructions: Give participants one minute to review the scenario, and then ask participants to chat in their ideas about what Dan should do. Highlight the following ideas if participants do not mention them:
Dan could speak with Nina to explore the source of changes in her attitude and behaviors. It might be work exhaustion or some other source, such as a difficult personal situation. 
Dan could consider whether he is inadvertently contributing to the problem; for example, by assigning her too much work.
Dan could develop an action plan. Once he understands the source of Nina’s behavior, they could discuss what changes both he and Nina could make to improve her situation. For example, if Nina is struggling with:
Overwork, consider assigning the most burdensome tasks to someone who might find them less grueling. Also encourage Nina to communicate with Dan about her workload
Conflicting demands, establish priorities in writing
Lack of work/life balance because of a long commute, consider allowing some telecommuting
Dan should follow up with Nina periodically to see how she feels and consider if additional changes would further improve her situation.  

14. Prevent burnout To prevent burnout, how would you…
Keep employees from taking on too much?
Give employees a break?
Provide unexpected rewards?
Acknowledge employees’ contributions to others?
Celebrate team milestones or successes?
Facilitator notes:
[Time: 12 minutes]
Say: In the scenario, we discussed approaches to help an employee who is already showing signs of burnout. Now let’s discuss what you can do to prevent employee burnout before it happens. Take a look at your responses to the practice activity for the lesson “Manage At-Risk Employees,” which addresses five high-level strategies for preventing burnout. Starting with question 1 in the practice activity, please raise hands if you’d like to share ideas for keeping employees from taking on too much.
Instructions: Call on one or two volunteers as time permits. Ask for volunteers to raise hands to share ideas for the remaining four approaches to prevent burnout. Call on at least one volunteer to share ideas about implementing each approach.
Say: These are excellent suggestions for preventing employee burnout. In addition to the areas we’ve discussed, do you have additional suggestions for preventing burnout? Please raise hands if you’d like to share your thoughts.
Instructions: Call on one or two volunteers as time permits.
Say: Finally, take a minute or two to document steps you will take to prevent burnout on your team.
Instructions: Allow a minute or so for the group to individually reflect and make notes.

15. APPLY WHAT YOU’VE LEARNED
STRESS
MANAGEMENT
APPLY WHAT YOU’VE LEARNED
Facilitator notes:
[Time: 1/2 minute]
Say: We’re coming to the end of our session today.

16. Today’s objectives Help you: Create great jobs
Create a culture that promotes retention
Prevent burnout
Facilitator notes:
[Time: 1 minute]
Say: Today’s session focused on three important elements of Retaining Employees. Specifically, we discussed how to:
Create great jobs
Create a culture that promotes retention
Prevent burnout

17. Apply what you’ve learned
Your next step is to complete the On-the-Job section of the Harvard ManageMentor Retaining Employees topic.
Facilitator notes:
[Time 1 minute]
Say: The On-the-Job section in the Harvard ManageMentor Retaining Employees topic provides an opportunity for you to pick a skill to work on and come up with specific ways to apply and develop that skill in your workplace. For instance, you can pick the skill: “Create a team microculture that fosters retention.” Then you’ll identify specific action items that you can do to apply and develop this skill. For example, you could develop an action item of: “I will routinely ask employees what they need to feel engaged and motivated.”
Say: In order to complete this learning experience, proceed to the On-the-Job section in the Harvard ManageMentor topic. Remember, the only way to develop a skill is to apply and experiment with the use of that skill in your workplace.

18. Thank you Facilitator notes: [Time: 1/2 minute]
Instructions: Thank participants for their time and active participation.