When I wrote my new book Ingaging Leadership, I didn’t plan it to be a manual about employee retention. But then a reader emailed me to say that he thought my ideas had the potential to dramatically improve employee retention in his organization.

It’s always wonderful when someone makes an observation like that. In return, I’d like to share three ideas from the book that can lead to improved employee retention.

Invest Wisely in Training

Training creates a company where people have superior skills, yet it can pay even larger benefits. One of the biggest is that if you invest in training, your employees will realize that they have a future with your company. That creates an environment where your best people are much more dedicated, productive and loyal enough to want to stay and build their careers.

Here is a joke that conveys a deeper meaning . . .

A manager asks, “What if I invest a lot of money in training my people and then they leave me?”

Another manager replies, “What if you don’t train them and they stay?”

The reality is, many companies scrimp on training. That’s shortsighted and costly in both the short and long term.

Remember that Benefits Matter Too

Like training, benefits are expensive – no question – but they are critical to cultivating and retaining a strong employee base. And your staff is your greatest asset.

Benefits keep people within your organization. If you are not providing comprehensive healthcare coverage and another company offers a better package, people in your company will look for work at that other company. The same is true in relation to funding a 401(k).

Investing in benefits ultimately means that you will keep good people and reduce your turnover. And remember, turnover is expensive. To find a replacement for an employee who leaves is expensive and time-wasting. You have to spend money and time to recruit each new employee – usually while the job of the employee who left is being handled by other staffers, or left undone. After you bring your new employee on board, it costs money for the training that gets him or her up to speed. And in some cases, the first person you hire doesn’t work out. He or she fails to serve customers well while getting up to speed, for one example, which costs you money and business. And if that new hire doesn’t work out, you have to repeat the entire process a second or even a third time.

I have been a small businessperson and I have worked for large companies, too. I am fully aware of how time-consuming and expensive it is for small businesses to offer good benefits. But the reality is that doing so is worth it. The money you invest is money well spent.

Encourage Open Listening – Both in Yourself and in Others

This is a concept that will repay you if you teach it in your training sessions.

A lot of experts have written that if you listen more to your own thoughts than to what other people are saying – a pattern that they call interruptive listening – you will miss what they are saying, including any kernels of wisdom.

I agree with that point, but I would like to expand it by recommending something that I call open listening.

Here’s how it works . . .

As you listen to others, always be alert for kernels of wisdom, or simply good ideas, in their words.

Before I learned this lesson I was an attentive but inauthentic listener. As I was listening to people, I was only trying to discover areas where they were wrong, so I could argue for my own ideas and positions. As soon as I turned that around and started to seek what was right, not wrong, in what others were saying, I learned a lot more. People sensed that they were being heard. I feel that the result is that more people are being open to ideas all around me. And in my opinion, people like to build their careers in companies where their contributions are heard, understood, and valued.