Retain Top Talent

Loved the various ideas in this article to stimulate team - culture interaction, learning about each other, and building strong relationships.

In my workshops for Vistage Groups on Managing Remotely in a Crisis, many members complain of Zoom Fatigue. Here is an article on how to overcome this issue in your organization - since it appears it's going to be awhile before we're all back together in person.

In my complimentary workshops for Vistage Groups on Managing Remotely in a Crisis we've been talking about the need for leveraging technology to improve communications. Many companies are still stuck ina 1970s model of old-school communication even with a hybrid model of some staff in the office and some remote. EVERYONE is now a technology company. Are you helping your employees to be successful or do they feel like mushrooms in the dark.

Some really good tips for communicating with employees in a Crisis by HBR. How do relieve some of the fear, anxiety, apprehension, separation loss, and sense of divorce from the culture? How do you help move folks out of Maslow's level of Safety and Security concerns - hard to be productive when I'm worried about whether I'll have a job.

Here from Forbes some key points reinforcing those I've been making in my Vistage Managing Remotely in a Crisis workshop on Zoom: set expectations and manage them, do face to face meetings on video, over communicate, create a communications plan and stick to it,

How well is your leadership doing leading across these elements?

Have you considered gamification around some of your employee engagement initiatives, such as supporting teammates, exhibiting core values, going above and beyond for a customer or teammate, coming up with a recommendation/suggestion for improvement, making referrals - the list is endless. This article does a good job walking through gamifying activities to drive behavior or action. It's all the time in the sales function - why not everywhere else in the organization?

I especially liked the paragraph in this article on getting creative around engaging, motivating, involving, stimulating, building team cohesion. The problem is that most companies can't even begin to explore these creative ideas because they haven't yet implemented the basic fundamentals of employee engagement like defining success for the role, having a great recognition process, and doing frequent discussions (one to ones) around subjects of learning, impact, and becoming - stay interviews.

I spent a lot of time today with one vistage group focusing on employee recognition. My research indicates that it's the next most important element in employee engagement/productivity - after defining clear expectations for everyone.

Some good tips on managing performance - particularly when performance falls below your expectations. NOTE the importance of setting clear and specific goals/outcomes.