Flexibility at heart of staff loyalty

A firm's staff retention figures tell the tale of how successful a company is in this ambition.  One of the most unsustainable things a business can do is have a high staff turnover – all that investment in its people going to waste if they are constantly heading out the door.

Sue Elsworth, NZ CEO of Sysdoc, the international business solutions company which specialises in change management, process improvement, training and documentation,  says the company's high staff retention levels are due to the family culture, which the business has created over the past 24 years.

 “Our staff turnover would be less than five percent,” says Ms Elsworth. When people leave it's usually because of a career change not because they are dissatisfied with Sysdoc. There are a number of people among her 120 New Zealand staff who have been with the company for more than 10 years, says Elsworth, CEO since 2008, and at the company for nearly 10 years.

Having sustainable staff levels all starts with the recruitment process – have you chosen the right person in the first place? When interviewing someone for the company, Elsworth meets them a number of times before making a decision to hire them.

“We have an intensive but different approach, we meet people three times.  It's a two way thing – it's very important for us to get to know the person at a personal level and it's very important for that person to get to know us. We are very much looking for attitude and personality, as well as job skills.  If you get that fit right, then people will stay with you for a long time.”

The company management wants to know what is going on in their staff's lives. “If there was a family emergency, we would be very flexible, if you wanted a month out or to drop down to three days a week, we would make it happen.  All sorts of things can happen,  you need to be there for people,” says Elsworth.

Staff wanting to take some time out because of other interests are accommodated. “Someone wanted three months off to work overseas, another one took a month off to work with tigers in Thailand.”

Sysdoc has offices in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and America with 170 staff globally and it uses this network to help retain staff with itchy feet.

“We can provide for staff if people are at the stage in their life where they want overseas experience. We recently were able to provide work for members of the team in Asia – Hong Kong, Singapore and Jakarta – working on training projects, for instance.”

Elsworth makes sure she knows about the “whole person”, she has a process where twice a year she will sit down with them and ask them about their aspirations, personal and career-wise.  “It's about their career and also about what else is going on in their life.”

Elsworth encourages people to follow their dreams. She remembers one member of staff decided to train for the Hawaii Ironman race. The staff member reduced her work hours and took one month off to live in Hawaii and acclimatise for the race.

“That was a life ambition for her, it was really important, it's about being able to achieve your dreams.”

Another employee is building a sustainable house, so he wants to spend a certain amount of time a week overseeing the project. This fits well with the company's own sustainable actions and open culture.

“As a culture we are about making a difference,” says the Sysdoc CEO. As well as recycling, the company is using iPads to reduce paper usage among a number of initiatives. A team of consultants at Sysdoc also help their clients become more efficient and sustainable too. Sysdoc staff, meanwhile are encouraged to come to the company with their own charity initiatives, in fact it was on the agenda at this year's company conference.