Retain Top Talent

Tracy writes about the role HR can play in driving signficant change for organizations to be more successful. I agree this is the role HR should be playing. Unforunately, I see it less than 5% of time when interviewing HR executives in my executive search practice. CEOs dream of having an HR leader who can do what the author describes - why do most HR execs constrain themselves to the role of admin instead of a strategic force?

Some interesting ideas of how Trader Joes creates a unique culture starting at hiring and on-going to reinforce the culture. Perhaps, a few of these ideas might apply to your organization?

It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but the author is suggesting that even in the middle of a crisis like the Corona Virus - it might be the perfect time to do an employee survey and measure current engagement levels.

Incredible retention rates when employees feel their employer cares about them. These rates fall to dismal levels when an employee feels that they don't matter, there is no transparency in communication, and caring/empathy is not part of the culture.

What are you doing to fix it before it's too late?

eNPS is becoming all the rage to measure as a metric your employee satisfaction, happiness, and willingness to refer other employees. Are you effectively measuring this metric and using it to improve your culture?

There are 3 main areas that authors focus on in terms of an employee's experience: employee engagement, employee happiness, and employee satisfaction. All of these can impact customer satisfaction.

Many authors use these terms with overlapping definitions. 

As a summary statement, there is a lot of overlap between the ideas. For example, this author talks about creating a positive work environment - this can affect engagement, happiness, and satisfaction. 

For me, the bigger question is how do we measure the investment in retention or engagement tactics - is it through productivity KPIs, attendence, turnover, structured feedback from employee or customer surveys?

We know we should have a non-monetary reward/recognition system - but how do we determine if it is meeting our needs? What's the metric, measurement process, reporting, and action steps/milestones along the path of making improvements?

Interesting article on the importance of relationships at work. Remember one of the key elements of Gallup's engaged employee is someone who has a good friend at work.

The leaders of Faith-based communities figured out long ago that one of the reasons people stay in churches and synagogues is that they have deep relationships with others. 

Is it time to consider extending this model of relationship-building to a business environment?

Note on Facebook's shift to remote working:

"The impact of the coronavirus has caused Facebook to reassess its requirement for employees to work out of an office"

Have you gone through a similar analysis of who really needs to be in the office full-time or part-time?

A good reminder of some of the key elements to think about related to employee engagement. Which one of these could you focus on to improve your employee engagement - and raise productivity.

A really good article on defining culture, and details about how to build/refine your culture. Most interesting statistic was:

85 percent of organizations fail in transforming their cultures.

If 85% fail to transform/improve their culture - what's the biggest pain point?

I didn't find this article to live up to the headline about how to go from good to great in employee engagement. It offered a few simple suggestions.

What caught my eye was the couple of studies they mentioned that showed employees think their employer has blown it during the Corona Virus Crisis. These studies ranged from 45-55%. I saw one the other day that said 75% felt their employer had done a terrible job.

If those stats/surveys are accurate and reflect what's going on in your organization, what's your plan to fix it?

Some key points to think about regarding employee engagement with referencing some major studies and statistics.

Is there any reason why we would not want to work on raising employee engagement? How about increased profits, higher  customer retention, greater productivity?

Is there any reason why we would not want to invest time and effort in growing employee engagement?

I thought this was a good breakdown of different elements of the language of appreciation. Most employees don't feel appreciated enough and most managers don't know how to appreciate their employees.

Good summary on issues related to culture, including observation of executives and managers in the execution of values. Perhaps, most importantly was the comment  about employees wanting to know what's expected of them - which is now amplified exponentially given that most of the work force is at home "out of sight/out of mind".

Fear and uncertainty will cause your best performers to leave your organization - they'll find jobs instantly no matter what is happening in the economy. You'll be left with average and mediocre employees unless you being to start taking action now on your culture.

You know I'm a huge proponent of praise, recognition, and non=-monetary rewards to stimulate retention, engagement, and employee happiness. This article gives some good examples and shares some of the primary research around this topic.

I love statistics, metrics, scorecards, and surveys, especially around hiring and retention.

Here's some surveys and statistics to think about as you start to see your best talent get poached by your competitors.