Mastering Employee Retention: Proven Strategies for a Motivated Workforce

Join Advanced RPO’s Jenna Hinrichsen as she speaks with Amanda Brooks about tackling one of the biggest challenges in today’s workforce: employee retention. Discover how a people-first approach—rooted in trust, flexibility, and listening to employee feedback—can transform retention rates and build a resilient, motivated workforce.

Summary

In this episode of Advancing Talent Acquisition, Advanced RPO’s Jenna Hinrichsen speaks with Amanda Brooks about solving one of the workforce’s biggest challenges: employee retention. They dive into proven strategies for improving work-life balance, fostering a sense of belonging, and delivering tailored career development opportunities.

Amanda shares how a people-first approach centered on benefits like tuition reimbursement, inclusive workplace practices, and authentic human connection has transformed retention rates. By listening to employee feedback, addressing evolving needs, and prioritizing trust and flexibility, businesses can build a motivated workforce and drive long-term success.

Episode 2

Jenna Hinrichsen
Welcome to the Advanced RPO Podcast, Advancing Talent Acquisition, where we bring you tips, trends, and insights from top industry experts. Today, our guest is Amanda Brooks. I’m so excited. Amanda, welcome and tell us a little bit about your background.

Amanda Brooks
Sure, thanks for having me, Jenna. Just to share a little bit, even before the role that I’m in today, way back when my family owned a restaurant out in the Chicago suburbs, but then I was more interested in getting into corporate human resources. So, for about 15 years, I worked in various global human resources business partner roles. Why I’m really excited to talk today about the specific role I’m in is that I’m able to get side by side working on the ground with our restaurant crew, customers, and then we have a franchisee business model. So, I get to work with a lot of small business owners. And that’s really back to my roots, right? Where I get the most energy. I’d say in this role specifically, there’s a little bit of an internal and external component given the franchisee business model. So, you know, really when I think about measuring success for my role, it’s based on goals. It’s based on engagement surveys, which hopefully we’ll get into in a little bit.

But what my company does really, really well is set national plans and goals. And then in this case, I’m able to take it down locally to five Midwest states that I work with. And from an internal standpoint, when I think about just corporate staff, it’s really driving the people strategy as it relates to talent, performance, motivation and career development. But then externally, you’re back to that franchisee business model. It’s a lot about consulting and informing and sharing knowledge and tools and resources that really help the restaurant crews and teams, similar to operations leaders sharing restaurant food safety and other aspects of restaurant performance. So, when I think about my role holistically, it’s supporting 1600 restaurants, well over 80,000 restaurant crews. And it’s the largest field office that we have in my company. So, it’s a really exciting role.

Jenna Hinrichsen
Nice. And just for our listeners, your title is field people officer, correct? In the quick service industry.

Amanda Brooks
You got it. Yep.

Jenna Hinrichsen
Okay, good, good. So, our topic today is hourly employee retention, which I think is really the Achilles heel of the service industry. It’s so hard to retain hourly workers. And especially when you’re talking about different shifts, different schedules and keeping things moving. So let’s dive in and talk about this challenge that companies have.

How do you, at your organization, balance employee work-life balance with productivity? Knowing that those two things have to align, what are some things that you guys do internally that make that gel well for the employees?

Amanda Brooks
Yeah, it’s a great question. We always joke here that our company will take whatever you’re willing to give it. So, if you want to work 24/7, which hopefully no one wants to, there’s always a ton of work to be done. But at the end of the day with food and service, you know, we’re not operating, we’re not rocket scientists, we’re not brain surgeons. So, when I think about this question, it’s really about prioritization. And maybe it’s difficult to take that down to an hourly staff level. But it’s looking holistically at enterprise goals, making sure that the goals are communicated, that you can check in with them regularly. And then the work that you’re doing really ties to those goals. So, if you continue to pile more and more work on for your hourly staff, just pause and ask yourself, is this really necessary? And the way that you can do that really is, you know, are you defining a problem that’s solving and working towards your goals? Do you know how much time it’s going to take? Can you do just like a quick stop, start, continue, exercise, and know what your trade-offs are going to be. It’s super easy for me to say that you can just say no to things, but instead of saying no, think about different solutions, think about simplifying the work, think about maybe another team can take that on, maybe you can give someone some sort of stretch assignment. So those are some of the things that we do here.

Jenna Hinrichsen
Yeah, I really like meeting the employee where they’re at because not whether you’re an hourly worker or not, not everybody wants to excel and grow in their career. And I think a lot of times people are companies sort of force employees to be like the A player. You have to be 110 % or you’re not going to work here. And so, I think that concept of meeting someone where they’re at and taking what they’re willing to give, knowing that there’s going to be people that do want to excel and grow and there’s going to be some that don’t, I think that’s a great, great strategy and it makes a whole lot of sense.

Amanda Brooks
It’s about working smarter and not harder. And if you, as a manager of these folks, are not living that and demonstrating it, your staff is going to do the same thing that you’re role modeling. So, it’s always just looking inwardly at yourself too and what are you demonstrating on the job. So, I love that.

Jenna Hinrichsen
And being realistic. I mean, at the end of the day, be realistic. You’ve got a demographic that you’re working with in terms of certain positions. And so be realistic with what you can expect. And I think that that makes a big difference. What can frontline managers do to foster a sense of belonging? So, you’ve got the corporate goals and a large organization can bring people together. But then there’s that day to day where people are reporting to a specific manager. How do you tie all that together and make sure that the frontline manager are really supporting the employees and helping with that retention model.

Amanda Brooks
Yeah, I love that. I think we do a really nice job here internally, you know, with our staff, it’s all about how to have the difficult conversation, how to raise awareness on topics that maybe don’t relate to your day to day job. So, we call them inclusion context and it’s bringing something to the table that maybe they’re just not comfortable talking about, but making it okay to talk about. And I think that that really starts at the top. no matter what size of company we’re talking about.

If you’re with a smaller company, how are you role modeling inclusion in your community? If you’re in a larger company, you know, are you looking at diverse suppliers, vendors? If you’re looking at how to recruit staff, making sure that you’re seeking diverse perspectives and everything that you do from the recruitment standpoint. This really, you know, the world that I’m in, in this quick service industry, it’s such a huge company. So we want to make sure that we’re touching customers that are all over the country and that we’re tying that in from everything that we do from recruitment to employee development. And you can use things like AI, right, to make sure, just do a gut check and make sure that you have gender neutral job postings that you’re removing bias during interviews. But it really comes down to day to day, are you making your employees feel comfortable on the job? Do they want to come and work with you?

Can they bring their whole self? And maybe some people don’t want to bring their whole self. Maybe some people just want to come in, do their eight hours and go home to maybe a different environment. Exactly. Love it.

Jenna Hinrichsen
And that’s okay, and that’s okay. Yeah, yeah. I love the human connection part of it because there’s so much technology and when you’re a large organization, you need technology to be able to do a lot of these things. But when you start to phase out or less and less of that human contact, that translates into less connection for the employee. So I love that you keep that balance there with that. How have you built career development into employee retention. So obviously we’ve talked about there’s some people that are happy in their role, they’re not looking to grow, they’re happy just where they are, but there’s people who do want to grow in their role. So how have you built that into your retention model?

Amanda Brooks
Yeah, I love that. And I think all companies do career development in some way, shape or form. What you can do if maybe you can’t kind of let it roll off your tongue and you don’t have a model for it is build a framework. So, what we do here is it’s a four part framework. It’s about staffing. It’s about equipping your staff. It’s about growing and it’s about leading. So, when we think about staffing, it’s are you making thoughtful hiring decisions to get the best talent? Are you using consistent interview guides to really bolster that onboarding experience?

For equipping, it’s about communicating with our crew and with managers, listening to their feedback, taking action on engagement principles for growing, kind of going what you’re after, going after what you’re talking about for career development. Do they have everything they need to do their job? If so, great, then you can talk about career development. To your point earlier, maybe some people don’t want to grow. Maybe they just want to come in and do their job, which is totally fine. But you’re going to get those really hungry people. And so, it’s making sure that they have a development plan, making sure that you’re checking in with them regularly. Are you being stretched? You know, is there another part of the business that you want to participate in? And then the last part is really that leading. So here we offer tuition reimbursement and it doesn’t always come in the way of a university. You know, there’s different certifications that folks can get. And it helps to retain them, right? Because if you’re helping fund some of this education or tuition reimbursement in whatever they want to grow in, then you’re tying them a little bit to making sure that they stay with the company. So, there’s just different ways that you can attack retention and career development.

Jenna Hinrichsen
Yeah. And I like that you’re talking about not being just like a one-stop shop model or a one-stop shop way of doing it. You’re really looking at the employees specifically, because not everybody, even the people that you’ve got the demographic of people that want to develop and then the ones that are just happy in their role as they are today. But then there’s people that want to develop in different ways. And so, what does that mean? It doesn’t look the same for every employee. So, recognizing that, think, as an employer really stands out to employees when they’re looking at what kind of company do I want to work for.

I love that. What would you say are the most valued employee benefits that hourly employees look for in today’s market? Things have changed so much over the last five years, four years. What are like two top things that hourly employees really want when they’re looking at employment?

Amanda Brooks
Yeah, good question. And I think you nailed it, right? The world is changing. So, if you as a company are not looking at your benefits every single year and re-evaluating, do we have what our employees are telling us what they want? You know, if things aren’t relevant and getting rid of them. So, I think some of its anecdotal, right? They want to feel like they belong. They want to feel like they’re recognized. But when you think about those tactical things, what we hear from our employees is some of that tuition reimbursement. And again, I can’t stress it enough. It doesn’t always mean a university tuition repayment. It’s, whatever they’re interested in. So, if you can offer up some sort of, you know, the basic physiological needs, as we all know, you know, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, or is it the medical, dental stuff, the basic stuff, and then what’s the next level up that they can really, you know, develop themselves. So it’s really hard to pinpoint to, would say. As long as you’re evaluating what your staff is telling you that they want, meeting their basic needs, and then what’s kind of the next level up that’s going to drive more productivity for your company and make them really excited about coming to work every day.

Jenna Hinrichsen
Yeah, so really options, think in the benefits that you have, there’s options. Some are going to work for some people and some are going to work for others, but there’s multiple things that they have that will kind of fit your overall pool of talent. So, I think that makes sense. What are two top factors that most significantly impact employee retention?

Amanda Brooks
Yeah, so we do a nice job at obtaining feedback through engagement surveys and just listening sessions and checking in with folks. But what we’ve heard are the top two, and I hate to admit this, but sometimes it’s lack of fun and then inadequate stuff. So, going back to their basic needs, if they don’t feel that they can just do their job, they’re not going to be having fun. A rule of thumb for general managers is, do they know why each person is coming to work every day? Sometimes it’s to support their family. Sometimes it’s to save for the future. Sometimes it’s to get out of their house. And maybe they’re not going to share that with you, but if you can just challenge yourself as a people leader, general manager, whatever it is, to ask that question, get into the conversation, grab coffee with them and try and know what that is for every specific person that’s reporting up to you. You’re just going to be in a better place, because they’re going to feel that they can trust you and that you have their best interests at heart.

Jenna Hinrichsen
Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I think the connection, this all really goes back to the connection, the human connection that you have with employees. So, I love that. One last question for you. What would be your top career tip that you would share? Any type of, it doesn’t have to be for hourly roles, any type of role. What’s your top career tip that you want to share with our listeners today?

Amanda Brooks
Yeah, I love this question so much. And for me, it’s really viewing every person that you meet could open the door to some opportunity. So, this could be the fact that you and I worked together, what, 20 plus years ago, and we’ve just basically got in touch, and you thought I might have something to add, which I love. I got a call from someone that I went to high school with the other day that wanted to have me do some consulting. And I realized that sometimes this is luck, right?

But some of my jobs that I’ve had are from relationships of people that I waited on in my restaurant days. So again, going back 15, 20 years, I waited on someone, I kept in touch with them. They knew about an HR job, they kind of followed my background. They called me when something came up and I went and worked for them. So, it’s never closing the door on any opportunity and really just treating every person with respect and dignity. And I know there’s always like the golden rule, treat people that, you know, how you want to be treated. think that what they’ve moved now towards is like this platinum rule. So, putting yourself in other people’s shoes, thinking about how they want to be treated and really just questioning yourself and making sure that you’re treating them in that way. But at the end of the day, it’s all about respect and opportunity. So that’s my tip.

Jenna Hinrichsen
Yeah. And again, the theme here, really all goes back to human connection. Everything that you’re talking about, everything we talked about in the questions that we went over, and then this specific topic, it’s all really about human connection and really having that with people and not taking that for granted. I love that.

Amanda Brooks
Mm-hmm.

Jenna Hinrichsen
So, thank you so much for this today. It was so good to catch up with you and to learn about your position and the different things that you guys do as an organization. For our listeners, make sure you subscribe to our podcast. And if there’s a specific topic that we haven’t covered that you’re interested in, please put it in the comments and we’d love to cover that in the future. And then we have a plethora of resources on our website. So, visit us when you have time, browse around at advancedrpo.com and we

We’ll see you next time. Thanks again, Amanda. Great to see you, bye.

Amanda Brooks
Thanks Jenna, great to see you, bye.

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