Host: Joseph Lewin

Guest: Kejal Shah — Talent Consultant • Certified Career Coach • Founder, KeepWay Consulting

This episode was originally aired on Sep 24, 2024 on LinkedIn

🎯 Episode Snapshot

Joseph and Kejal unpack why so many businesses struggle to hire and keep good people, and why your mid-level managers are the make-or-break layer for culture, retention, and growth. Kejal shares a practical framework (ADR: Attraction, Development, Retention) and talks about why owners have to stop pretending hiring is “just an HR thing.”

This episode was produced by Sell Through Social.

🧠 Begin With the End in Mind

Why you can’t treat hiring like “just filling a seat”:

• Turnover is higher and more expensive than ever.
• Most companies don’t clearly define what a successful hire looks like before they start interviewing.

Kejal has leaders focus on 3 value pillars in candidates:

• Purpose – Why do they do what they do?
• Passion – What energizes them?
• Promises – What do they consistently deliver on?

If you don’t clarify this up front and build it into your interview questions, you bake in retention problems before the person even starts.

💸 The Real Cost of Hiring (and Re-Hiring)

Kejal breaks down why bad hiring is so expensive:

• For hourly / blue-collar roles, sourcing 1 person can cost:
• $4K–$8K+ (ads, tools, recruiter/HR time, interview time, onboarding).
• For white-collar roles, it’s often:
• $8K–$12K+ just to get them in the door.

And that’s before:

• Onboarding and training time
• Lost productivity
• Burden on the rest of the team when someone quits
• Restarting the whole process 6–12 months later

Most companies don’t fully count:

• The time cost of hiring managers
• The opportunity cost of a seat being open for months
• The burnout cost on existing staff covering extra workload

If you actually total it all up, one bad hire (or one early departure) can easily cost more than building a solid hiring & retention system from the start.

🧩 Why Mid-Level Managers Are the Culture Gatekeepers

Kejal’s core conviction:

“Your vision and culture live and die in your mid-level leadership team.”

Mid-level managers sit in the pressure sandwich:

• Pressure from the top: owners & executives demanding performance and low turnover.
• Pressure from the bottom: frontline employees who need support, clarity, and development.

Problems that show up if this layer isn’t equipped:

• Owners get mad: “Why are you losing people? We’re spending all this money on hiring!”
• Mid-level managers were never trained in:
• How to hire the right people
• How to coach and develop them
• How to retain and grow them
• Employees feel unheard, overworked, and unseen—and leave.

If mid-level leaders are not:

• Bought into the vision
• Given real authority & tools
• Trained to hire, coach, and retain

…then culture, productivity, and retention all start to crumble.

🧬 Owners: You Can’t Outsource This Responsibility

Many owners never learned how to:

• Attract the right people
• Interview effectively
• Develop and retain talent
• Yet they still blame mid-level leaders for turnover.

The hypocrisy problem:

• “Do as I say, not as I do” kills trust.

Mid-level leaders eventually ask:

• “What’s your hiring process?”
• “How are you developing me?”
• “Where are you investing in people?”

When there’s no answer, your best managers leave, and the owner is left wondering what happened.

🧱 Key Retention Realities You Can’t Ignore

Kejal shared some sobering patterns:

• First 48–72 hours: New hires decide emotionally if they see themselves staying long-term.
• Average tenure in many salaried roles: Often 12–16 months before people move on.
• High performers: If they don’t advance or see a clear path within 12–18 months, they’ll:
• Move departments or Leave the company altogether.
• People who job-hop every 1.5–2.5 years often earn: 25–35% more over time than those who stay 5–10 years and only get 5–10% raises.

In other words:

If you don’t offer growth, compensation, and a future, the market will.

🧬 It’s Still a Candidate’s Market

Even with economic uncertainty:

• Candidates understand that their time is their most valuable asset.
• Remote work and national talent markets mean: Your local company is now competing with coastal salaries and fully remote roles.
• Employees are asking: “Is this the best place to invest 75–80% of my waking life?”

If your internal opportunity is weaker than what’s outside, A-players will leave.

🧱 Kejal’s ADR Framework: Attraction, Development, Retention

Kejal uses a three-part system with clients:

1️⃣ Attraction

Build a front-end system that actually draws the right candidates:

Data first:

• What are your retention rates over the last 5–10 years?
• What does it actually cost to hire per role?

Recruitment marketing:

• Smart use of Indeed, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, etc.
• Clear and compelling external, internal, and employment value propositions.

First impression:

• Onboarding and first 2 weeks matter immensely.
• New hires should feel: welcomed, supported, and clear on expectations.

2️⃣ Development

Keep people growing or they’ll grow somewhere else:

Mentorship & internship programs:

• Interns can be 25–35% cheaper to bring in and can grow into long-term hires.

Visible growth paths:

• Clear org charts and promotion paths
• “Here’s exactly how you can grow here over the next 3–5 years.”

Skill-building & leadership training:

• Particularly for mid-level managers—teaching them how to:
• Hire
• Coach
• Give feedback
• Lead people, not just manage tasks.

3️⃣ Retention

Make staying the smart move:

Regular check-ins & surveys:

• 30 / 60 / 90-day feedback loops to catch issues early.

Benefits & incentives that actually signal confidence:

• Low 401(k) participation = low long-term trust in the company.

Fair advancement (not just nepotism or random external hires):

• If all-stars see outside people parachuting into roles they’ve worked toward for years, they will leave.

🧱 The Ideal Team Player Traits

Kejal often uses Patrick Lencioni’s framework when helping define “ideal team players”:

• Humble – Not above learning, feedback, or collaboration.
• Hungry – Driven to grow, contribute, and take ownership.
• Smart – Not just IQ, but emotional and relational intelligence.

Combine that with Purpose, Passion, Promises, and you have a strong lens for evaluating the right people on the front end.

🌐 Where to Find Kejal Shah

• 🌐 Website: www.keeproinc.com
• 💼 LinkedIn: Kejal Shah