Retain Top Talent

I am always in search of technology applications that raise employee effort, motivation, learning, and performance. Are you in a constant search evaluating these tools for enhancing the capability of your workforce, whether you have 15 people or 1500?

I heard a speaker in my Vistage group make the claim that every company was now a technology company. If you truly want to unlock the potential of your workforce - old school methods are no longer effective. Without leveraging technology you'll be left in the dust.

I am in shock how many of my clients are still doing things old school - such as no technology in managing success factors, rewards and recognition, or skills/knowledge inventories layered with a learning platform. How about all the on-boarding that is still manual and paper driven? The tools are out there to boost the productivity of your workforce and they are very cheap when compared to the increased output.

This article showcases one example of a tool that is becoming more popular for training, learning, and development - particularly in a work at home or hybrid work structure.

What's your next move to embed technology to unlock your workforce productivity?

The problem I see is not an overstatement of the job or hype - it's the opposite. Most companies market their jobs with job descriptions describing the work in boring, mundane, repetitive terms which are basically convey you as an employee will have any value -and you will not matter significant to your boss, team, customers, or organization. Obviously, your job ad/marketing statement must align with the real role. However, most job descriptions are not compelling. They are a disgusting, revolting, repulsive, and repugnant tool to atttract top talent = great employees.

Why would I raise my hand unless I'm desperate for a job. You must describe work in more compelling terms by addressing what would employees at that level want from a new job - is it being challenged, is it job security, is it working with a great team of people?

I've published a number of articles on tracking nEPS as a metric to measure the success of your initiatives around employee experience and engagement. If you can't measure it, it's probably not worth managing. How do you track the success of your talent management initiatives?

Although the example used in this article was about dissatisfaction among nurses not finding meaning in their work" the exact same issues affect your employees regardless of industry. Are you leveraging recognition and appreciation to motivate, engage, and help show employees how they matter to your success?

Some key points in this Forbes article about culture change. How do you adapt to a post-Covid world? How do you integrate the baby boomer managers with staff of younger generations? How do make significant strides forward in employee effort, productivity, and engagement?

The author doesn't talk a lot about specific strategies, but rather the change management elements of having a plan and communication - 2 of the key reasons why 80 percent or more of cultural initiatives fail miserably.

Here's an interesting I had not considered before regarding employee recognition - employee spotlights. There seems to be many ways to use these from on-boarding, to team recognition, to recognizing specifc employees who knocked it out of the park. A lot of faith-based communities use this technique to enable relationships to be built among their members. Have you thought of strengthening your employee at-work relationships through the idea of employee spotlights - particularly since strong work relationships is a key component of high-performing teams.

Almost all of my clients are struggling with giving effective feedback and conducting on-going performance management. This article emphasizes some of the key points to having a discussion around performance with your team members. I like the idea of showing empathy as a starting point.

Is there an increasing trend of employees being disappointed in their employer's response/support of working from home? How does this effect productivity and engagement in the coming hybrid work environment?

Have you given thought to improving your on-boarding process? How do you create a scenario in which the new employee thinks they've made the best decision of their life to join your organization - from the moment of the offer to their first 90 days on the job.

I've done about 75 workshops since mid-March on Managing Remotely in a Crisis covering similar points for Vistage groups and members.

Some really good ideas here that most companies are violating during Covid and remote work. First, building trusting relationships through effective one-to-ones, and showing a little bit of caring, sensitivity, and empathy by not making every conversation about goals and KPIs - building this conversation through effective use of video and chat technology. Are you failing to engage your workforce for the highest productivity levels because you're failing on some of these most basic elements of managing remotely?

Here's counter argument to employee engagement. I do not agree with the author's statement that the most we can expect from an organization is 35% engagement.

Problems: First, I do agree that the engagement number has hovered around 25-33 percent for 20 years. Why? Is there a limitation or is it due to some other factor? I'll contend that you will always have a group of engaged employees no matter what you do. Second, the group that offers the greatest opportunity to raise the engagement number is the disengaged group - we're failing to engage this category of employee. In fact, I'll suggest that 80 percent of all engagement initiatives fail for lack of effective execution. Finally, we're leaving the actively disengaged in our companies dragging down the numbers. Get rid of these folks - they are negative influence on everyone else.

The solution might be better execution from the HR team in driving initiatives and programs around engagement.

Are you using this Covid crisis to raise your employee engagement - even though many employees might not be in the office. Notice the first item on the list is employee well-being - which I've discovered is the last thing most organizations are thinking about rather than the first.

Wow - catch this quote in the article:

"Yet more than 40% of respondents say their employer does not offer an incentive/rewards program or recognize employees."

In my workshops on employee engagement (productivity) I teach that having a rigorous reward, recognition, and appreciation program is second to helping employees understand what is expected of them.

Why do so many organizations fail at appreciating their employees?

Many companies have very weak non-monetary reward and recognition programs. Here are some ideas to experiment with for boosting employee engagement in your organization (I use the phrase employee engagement to be an alternative to employee productivity). Next to not defining success, a lack of a rigorous process for employee appreciation and recognition is the next biggest mistake I see at most companies in regard to employee engagement and productivity.

Key take-away from this article is the idea that companies should be focused on talent management - the entire range of an employee's experience. My personal perspective is that most organizations are still stuck in a 1970s model of management and culture. How do we continue to keep employees learning, growing, being challenged, and motivated?

There are some interesting ideas here related to engaging, appreciation, and recognition. Are you pursuing any of these initiatives for your culture/team?

Interesting elements of employee engagement to think about for the coming year. Where do you stand around significant initiatives on each of these key points? The job market is starting to heat up again in anticipatin of Covid ending. Are you prepared to retain your best performers or if you do nothing is there a risk of some of these folks being poached?

One of the elements I find most companies fail at in the hiring and engagement process is the bridge experience between them of on-boarding. How do you help your new employee feel like they've made the best decision of their life to join your organization. Here are some simple ideas/reminders of things to be done during that first 90 days so your new employee doesn't have "buyers remorse".

Although I've been beating the drums in my workshops on employee retention, engagement, and productivity around these concepts in the article based on Gallup's research in First Break All The Rules, the authors at BambooHR phrase it a little differently. This article serves as a great reminder of the key elements that drive employee engagement and productivity (I would rank understanding performance expectations NUMBER ONE).

Good article from Forbes pointing out key issues to sustain your culture in a hybrid model of part-time and full-time tele-commuters. How do you connect people to purpose, accountability, and shared experiences when they are seperated from their bosses, peers, and subordinates?

Many Vistage size companies treat recognition and non-monetary rewards like it's an afterthought. Many abandoned whatever they were doing when Covid hit. My belief is that you should double down on recognition when some or all of your workforce is virtual. The thing I liked most about this article was the linkage between recognized employees/engaged employees and customer satisfaction.

Interesting article about failure leading to success. I've been a deep reader of ideas around "failing forward" over the years. One of my core interview subject areas I recommend that clients probe is failure and the learning that comes from it. How people demonstrate resilience around failure. My own experience is that I got fired from my first job out of  college.

How has failure lit a fire under you and contributed to your success?

Here's an interesting article published by HBR that caused me to reflect and perhaps put myself in my "employee's shoes". I started thinking about their perspective of working from home and feeling isolated, separated from the company culture, loss of interaction and communication, a sudden drop off in feedback from my boss, a complete stop of any engagement/motivational strategies, and a level of fear of losing my job since no one is communicating what's happening with the company. It almost might feel like the management team has put their head in their hands with a "woe is me" attitude, praying that things might get better.

Layer that onto the stress of paycuts, furloughs, lack of direction, home schooling, and 2 spouses working from home.

Might our employees not become angry, upset, frustrated, feeling disconnected? What can we do about it?

Here's different lens through which to view your employees - new term: the employee engagement lifecycle - also referred as the employee experience. Are we considering our employee's journey from the hiring process through to when they leave? What are the touchpoints, how to build their loyalty and committment, and show them they've made the best decision of their career to be part of our organization? That's a radically different approach than you show up for work and we pay you for being here. Are we ready to make that transition?