Retain Top Talent

At first I had to laugh at this article - but then it hit me: Shouldn't your HR person be the individual tasked with ensuring employee happiness - along with employee engagement, employee satisfaction, employee learning and development, employee experience?

Why do we need to hire or contract with someone when that should be our chief people person? The issue is if you're not a big enough organization yet to support a full time senior professional HR person who drive these initiatives, what's your options? You could hire a "fractional" or part-time HR exec that supports you one day a month or one a week to drive these initiatives and set the programs up. Don't let your size or lack of a full time permanent person stop you from moving foward on the critical initiatives that dictate high or low productivity.

This is exactly what I am seeing over the last 6 months at many of my clients - a decline in employee engagement activities like celebrations, fun, team building, recognition, one-to-ones - all because your team members are out of sight - out of mind.

We should be doing the opposite - and reinvigorating our efforts around engagement, recognition, automony, development, training, coaching, mentoring - all the activities and initiatives that lead your employees to want to lean in and show discretionary effort like proactivity, initiative, doing more than asked, being inquisitive, problem solving VS. just trying to survive and do the minimum so they can stay on your payroll system.

One of the key items I point out in my workshops on hiring, performance management, and employee engagement is that most managers have no clue what they are doing since they've never been appropriately trained, coached, or mentored. We assume because people carry a manager title, they should know the best practices of hiring and managing. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Since 70 percent of engagement and productivity is tied directly to the capability of a manager - shouldn't we invest in training this group to be extraordinary at leading people and building high-performing teams.

What's holding you back from making this investment?

Every organization today is a digital organization. Helping your employees to be successful through the use of apps like Slack, Teams, Basecamp, Bonus.ly, and others can help you rapidly improve process for workflow, performance management, hiring, and employee engagement.

One area getting recent attention are apps that improve the onboarding process. I guess I should first say that most of the companies I consult with have an onboarding process that is still stuck in the 1970s which basically is having new employees watch videos and having them fill out HR paperwork.

Not having a robust app to drive onboarding can result in starting off on the wrong foot - and moving your new employee from excited to disengaged within days.

What's your next step to improve your on-boarding process?

One of the key pitfalls I see in most companies is a lack of a good listening device on employee concerns and issues. The best companies frequently and regularly take the pulse of their workface. Here's some interesting ideas about employee surveys.

Everyone organization is a technolgy company now! Are you using apps and tools to make life more efficient and enjoyble for your employees? Here are some ideas for employee engagement through Slack. If you're using teams - what is the comparable apps/tools?

Most companies are horrible at their on-boarding process. In most companies the imprpvement of their on-boarding process is fake dress up = what my of my midwestern friends would call putting lipstcik on a pig. A great on-boarding process goes a long way to building engagement, encouraging motivation, and ensuring a successful relationship.

I get this question a lot from my clients related to what are we measuring and how are we recognizing it in our people? Is it more about performance or behaviors?

As you probably know, I talk extensively about how rewards, recognition, and appreciation is the next most important element to employee engagement (productivity) after defining success for the role.

Do you have a strong peer to peer recognition as a best practice in rewards and recognition for your organization?

Let's shatter some myths that managers have about their remote/hybrid work team - for example - I was very surprised about the "tone it down" on communication myth.

Most companies I come across in my executive search and consulting practice claim they have a great culture - but they lack a core element of appreciation, gratitude, recognition, and thankfulness. How do your managers execute on a daily basis around showing appreciation? Is it time for some remedial training of your management team around this critical element of an outstanding culture.

Always looking for a little managerial humor. Bosses are always getting a bad rap - maybe for good reason after you read this article. I've been preaching over the last few years about how important the boss is in driving engagement/productivity.

Some interesting insights into your workforce - particulary the disengaged who don't care whether they continue working for you  - new study pegs it at 25 percent. I believe it's much higher - particularly if you look at the Gallup research.

Almost all of my clients have some element of a recognition program in place. This article does a great job pointing out the mistakes and errors many employers make in launching or managing these programs.

Are you guilty of any of the recognition program mistakes or errors listed in the article?

My takeaway from this article about improving employee engagement was that it starts with good management. Unfortunately, in many of the companies I've been invited to help with retention, engagement, hiring, and performance management strategies, the sad truth is that many of your managers have no clue what it means to be a good manager.

No one has ever given them sophisticated training on being a great manager, no one has ever mentored them to improve their game, and most managers lack the proactivity and initiative to go above and beyond to learn on their own.

The result is that a signficant portion of your workforce (50 percent) is disengaged and showing you minimal levels of productivity - just enough so they don't get fired. It's a shame that most organizations don't come close to realizing their potential since their management team is so weak in the skills of managing - most likely along the lines of being unconsciously incompetent.

Is it time to pivot and relook at the process of developing your managers through a new lens of boosting engagement and productivity. How could you afford not to train, develop, and coach?

In my workshops and consulting on employee engagement, I spend a lot of time focusing on saying thank you - showing appreciation, gratitude, thankfulness. Most companies suffer greatly from not doing this enough.

The problem is that most individuals in management lack enough empathy and sensitivity to say thank you when appropriate. Is it time for some management/supervisor training on when it's appropriate, what to say, and the vehicle/medium for presenting the thank you?

We usually think more about employee engagement than employee happiness - here are some ideas on the subject of helping your employees to attain happiness in their work from FORBES.

I frequenty suggest to my clients to do employee surveys to take the pulse of your workforce. Many companies don't do this because the management team is afraid of what they will hear. This article lists some of the good questions to use. I particularly liked the start of the article with "What's your Why?"

Are any of these telltale signs of disengagement occuring in your organization? I would guess it's all over the place if we're being honest since research indicates that 50-70 percent of your workforce is disengaged. The real question is what are you doing about it?

I rarely touch on the element of when to fire someone. I should probably cover this topic more in-depth. One of the old trite phrases that many of my clients violate is Hire Slowly, Fire Quickly. Most companies do the complete opposite. They fall victim to hiring mistakes because they pull the trigger long before vetting, validating, verifying every claim, accomplishment, achievement, skill, statement by the candidate.

They also let misbehaving, toxic, non-performers overstay their welcome instead of voting them off the island. They usually rationalize this decision with "better the devil I know than the one i don't."

I find that a huge struggle for many managers is the decision making process over when and how to give feedback. I like the summary and checkbox approach of this article to determining the proper course of action when an issue occurs that is feedback worthy.

Do you make performance discussion a two-way street? Interesting article on including an employee self-appraisal as part of your performance management-appraisal process.

Interesting article on performance management - particularly questions around feedback. The author suggests feedback is not as important as it once was since everyone feels that's the standard = unfortunately many companies still suffer from a basic last of effective feedback by managers. Is it time to reassess managerial skills in giving feedback. Many CEOs assume that if their direct reports carry manager level titles, they must understand how to give feedback. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I cannot stress enough the importance of a vibrant employee recognition and reward program. Here are some additional ideas to consider in recognition and rewards. Next to the lack of NOT defining success, a weak or non-existent recognition and rewards program is the secon reason you see a lack of engagement and productivity in your organization.

We've known this to be an issue for quite some time. Studies are starting to show the effect of stress and anxiety on engagement and productivity. The big question is how your organization is responding to this new trend and potential crisis given the fact that we're going to be in a Covid-related environment probably well into 2022.