Celebrating Employee Turnover
High turnover in research administration leads to an increased workload for the rest of the team, time and money to hire and train the replacement, and stress for managers everywhere. There are many strategies presented to combat this problem and create a better retention rate. The recommendation is to offer higher wages - which may or may not be possible - provide flexible work options, provide better benefits, employee recognition (rewards), improved training for research administrators, professional certification, and on.
But what if the answer is to embrace the culture of job change? Instead of thinking an employee leaving for a better salary elsewhere as a knock on us, we recognize it for what it is: an opportunity for that employee to grow their lives and career, as well as an opportunity for us to train the next generation of research administrators. Training keeps your skills sharp as a manager. It makes you better at your job. It is time-consuming. It is resource-consuming. Yet, it is a wonderful opportunity to share your passion for this field with the next generation. When a great employee leaves, you can celebrate their success and your own part in helping them grow their career. It is one of the greatest accomplishments as a manager to see your staff take on new challenges and grow, even if it is to somewhere else. The opportunity to dive deep into a vacant portfolio allows us to connect back to the PIs and really get to see what they need from us in terms of customer service. We can ask the PIs to weigh in on what they would like to see in a replacement research administrator. It is a new spring.
An open position in our group provides a chance to look at our staff holistically. We can gauge the workload each person has and decide if any changes are needed. It is a chance to strategize around our work processes and think about if they are working well. We can also take a step back and evaluate our diversity plans. An opening really is an opportunity to renew and refresh our staff. We can present opportunities with our new staff to help hire and mentor the new research administrator, aiding in their own career growth.
For the departing research administrator, it is almost as if this is a graduation ceremony. The individual has completed their internship and now is prepared to join us as a colleague. Our teachings will shine forever in the form of this research administrator, whom we hope will then rise to train the next generation. Mustafa called it the circle of life.
We have concluded that in our structure we have a few “tentpole” staff who will be with the unit for a long period of time and are our foundations. We consider the rest of the staff “on loan.” The average retention for junior research administrators these days is 2-3 years retention. One has to assume therefore that there will be frequent turnover; but, during this time, we serve as the trainers to make these individuals better and ready for the next step in the field. It may be a generational thing, yet what this has brought into focus is that we are really offering apprenticeships for these individuals. It’s our mission to ensure that they meet the rigor of the field and are fully prepared to aid in our goal to improve the quality of research administration across the enterprise (and field!). We’re using this period to have them get exposed to resources (such as SRAI!) and ideally obtain the skills and knowledge to obtain a professional research administration certification.
Ultimately, by changing our perspective that a vacancy is a problem and turning it into an opportunity, we are making lemons into lemonades. Retention is not a problem to be solved, because change can be such a force for good. At the end of the day, our staff has their own path to forge and we should want to celebrate all the steps forward they are making in their career.
Authored by Sabrina Heisey, Program Manager, Psychiatry Research
Boston Children’s Hospital
#April2023
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