Eagle Boys Pizza Founder Tom Potter revealed how putting people first reduced staff turnover from 30 per cent annually to 5 per cent, at a Griffith Business School luncheon event last Thursday.

As always, Tom was an entertaining speaker and with quick-witted facilitator of the Global Insights Luncheon series, Adam Spencer, there was plenty of laughter.

Covering a range of topics, including the Eagle Boys’ response to being sued by Pizza Hut (with comments from then Eagle Boys In-House Legal Counsel Alan Bates, who happened to be in the audience), the most interesting part, for me, was Tom’s comments about culture.

Like Tom, I agree that looking after people first is important.

And the results speak for themselves.

Putting people first had a huge impact on Eagle Boys’ staff turnover, and when you consider it costs roughly an annual employee’s salary to find and train a replacement (not including the loss of institutional knowledge that person takes with them) – a 25 per cent reduction creates huge savings.

Improving staff retention

One way Tom helped lower staff turnover was through his approach to performance reviews.

Tom said he started performance reviews with ‘what do you want from me?’

Although at first startling the person being reviewed, it was a highly effective approach.

Tom would say, ‘You work for me, so what do you want from me? More money? More time with your kids? What?’

It set a really good tone for the review, got the employee excited and engaged and then halfway through Tom would then say ‘this is what I need from you’.

And the employees delivered.

Interestingly Tom said it was rarely more money that the employees asked for, it was usually to spend more time with their kids or not to have to spend every Friday night in a pizza shop.

Another approach Tom took was to realise the personality styles of people and give them what they needed. He’d give data to analytical types, exciting or creative work to ‘party’ types, and so on.

By matching their work with their personality styles people enjoyed their work more.

This is something we could probably all benefit from considering.

What’s turnover like in your franchise business? How much would you save if you could retain your staff?

And with the economy and sentiment stronger this year analysts are expecting staff to begin looking for greener pastures again, so it might just pay to invest in the staff you have, to save you significantly in the long run.