Considering the far-ranging and costly implications of turnover, employee retention is at the forefront of a manager’s concerns — especially in a competitive industry like engineering. While there are a number of ways to keep talent from seeking new horizons, they unite under the broad theme of providing a compelling work environment.
How do you measure the quality of a work environment? It doesn’t always require a flashy methodology or cutting-edge technology to ascertain how employees are feeling about their job. Just ask Adam Jaffe Back: As a software engineering manager at Routable — whose tech facilitates business-to-business payments for users in fields like logistics and real estate — Back is emphatic about building authentic bonds with team members. When the bond is strong, they can be candid about where they are in the moment.
“For me, employee retention is fundamentally about relationship-building,” he said.
As simple as it sounds, Back’s input is spot-on: Relationships are fundamental to retention. They also dovetail with another employee engagement factor: career development, which is informed and empowered by a strong manager-employee relationship. A Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this year found 63 percent of respondents who quit their job in 2021 cited “no opportunities for advancement” as a reason for their exit.
At Routable, to help employees map out and communicate their growth, Back explained that, “Everyone completes an individual development plan to track their career development and we give and get regular, meaningful feedback from our managers and peers that helps us grow.”
To learn more of Back’s tips for retaining talent, Built In Seattle sat down with him — see the conversation below.
Describe your company’s value proposition to engineers.
At Routable, employees have an opportunity to solve hard problems, make a large impact, use a modern technology stack — the list goes on. Routable’s biggest offering however, is working with smart and passionate teammates. We are incredibly interested in everyone’s authentic self. Would you like to play the ukulele at the beginning of every staff meeting? Mahalo. What about a nerdy interest in watches? Head to the #team-horology Slack channel!
Routable cares about each individual and helps them grow. For example, I started as a frontend engineer, then became a tech lead and now I am an engineering manager for the core pod. Everyone completes an individual development plan to track their career development and we give and get regular, meaningful feedback from our managers and peers that helps us grow.
“A Guide To Me”
As a manager, how do you keep a pulse on your team member’s job satisfaction?
I’m super boring. I ask them. All the time.
That’s honestly just the tip of the iceberg, though. Everything below the surface is the trust I build with each team member so that they can answer questions about their job satisfaction honestly.
We recently kicked off a new sprint and I tried to plan the sprint such that everyone was under normal capacity, because we had been working so hard in the previous sprints to get a project across the finish line. Shortly after the sprint started, we had our scheduled monthly retrospective. I shared with the group that I felt hypocritical about determining what “under capacity” meant, because everyone had given more than their 100 percent and I felt that they deserved a break. This led to us having a real conversation about work-life balance with the ebbs and flows of working in a startup.
I’m a realist — not quite a pessimist, not quite an optimist. I tell my team members when I’ve had a hard day, week or sprint. I reflect openly about my performance and wins and losses. At the end of the day, I model the way I hope they answer my questions about their engagement.
I’m a realist. I reflect openly about my performance. I model the way I hope they answer my questions about their engagement.”
What have you learned about employee retention in your time as a manager at your company?
If employees don’t have a relationship of trust with their manager and team, they’re not going to share when they feel tired or burnt out. They might also not share their need to be recognized for things they feel they have accomplished. As a result, you can’t support them to get over a hump and this can lead to feelings of resentment for the employee.
