There are three reasons crew members leave. Learn how to avoid them.

Turnover isn’t a simple behavior. People leave jobs for all kinds of reasons. While it’s easy to claim money is the reason people leave fast-food jobs, that’s only true some of the time. Take my job at Burger King. I started on a Tuesday. I was replacing a girl who started on Monday. She quit during her first break. Walked outside for a cigarette and never came back. Surely that’s not about money. She wasn’t there long enough to get any. In fact, I understand she never came back for her check.

People don’t behave the way we want them to for three reasons: Either they don’t have the ability to do what we want; they aren’t motivated to do what we want; or something in the environment is stopping them from doing what we want. Reducing turnover is about figuring out which of these is the primary cause of your turnover.

We influence Ability by doing a better job of recruiting, selecting, and training new employees. For example, my best manager worked at Burger King. She interviewed me for more than an hour, while other store managers usually spent less than 15 minutes on this chore. When she hired me, I asked what convinced her I would work out. Her answer was simple: “I want people who are going to fit in. You have a sense of humor (clearly she wasn’t on target with everything) and you take this job seriously. I only hire people who know how to take care of business and have some fun along the way.” This response highlights the keys to selection.

When you have a good team, make sure new hires fit.

After you select employees, make sure the on-boarding process intensively involves the store manager. Early training is too important to delegate. Remember, the first days are scary on any new job. If you care for your people in these early days, the memory of your effort will imprint on their loyalty gene.

Motivation is affected by how we compensate and reward, how we measure and manage performance, and what kind of culture we have. When I talk about compensation and rewards, I’m not just considering money. Other things like advancement and development opportunities, job security, and benefits all affect the way crew members behave. We’ll talk about the 13 types of rewards in a later column. But, overall, if the reward is important, and the store manager has control over it, that’s a powerful force. My best manager was good at using the rewards she controlled. She was excellent at feedback. And though she was a bit stingy with reinforcement, she delegated this job well to others. She also was good at building social relationships at the store. People stayed because their best friends worked with them. If crew members leave because the pay isn’t...

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 I own a smaller place where most weekdays we only have one server on and cannot afford to have a manager there at all times.  I'm looking for...

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