Retain Top Talent

A few core thoughts on how to structure an effective employee recognition program and some of the pitfalls to avoid to prevent failure. It's particularly important in working with remote workers to have a good recognition/reward program.

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.

Struggling to think of ways to recognize your employees? Here are 20 great ideas. Pick one to start changing your culture and showing your employees how much you appreciate them.

If 81% of unhappy employees fake happiness and 50-70% are not engaged/unhappy at work - that's a big problem. When mainstream publications like Forbes start to highlight this as an issue - executives should sit up and take notice before it's too late.

In my retention workshop, one of the biggest frustrations executives mention is a concern of a lack of working hard, productivity, and effort. Duh - you're not seeing it because so many of your employees are not engaged and are unhappy.

The big question is: what's your action plan to fix it?

Good summary in Chief Executive Magazine by Jack Welch regarding his two primary areas of focus - employee engagement and customer satisfaction - both of which are intimately linked.

He talks about helping employees understand what's expected, where the vision is/where you're headed, what their impact will be on it, and what it means to them personally.

I find most companies fall short in this level of communication below the executive level. Very few employees understand what's expected, where the company is headed, what their specific role/impact is in that vision, and how it translates to something personal for them. Without this communication and training managers how to do it frequently - most companies fail to achieve decent levels of engagement and consequently suffer on customer satisfaction - and the related financial metrics.

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.

Sometimes in the rush and pressure of business, we forget that we're dealing with human beings who require a little praise, empathy, encouragement, interaction, and kindness.

Although the author mentions a number of very simple things, like celebrating birthdays, I still find that many companies show tthat they don't care about their people by ignoring some of these most basic elements. 

Where are you on the spectrum of caring, empathy, and specific tactics? When I help my clients develop compelling advertising, one of the most common phrases they throw back at me is "we're a family oriented environment."

When I ask for a couple of examples of why they say that - all I get is a blank look. Can you back up your statements with examples about your culture, values, and how the company cares about the employees?

I'm a huge proponent of defining quantifiable outcomes and metrics/KPIs to track progress and to move an organization forward. One of the metrics I am very keen on is eNPS.

Are you measuring employee satisfaction like customer satisfaction and the willingness of your employees to refer potential employees (friends, neighbors, former business associates, and others in their network)?

Good short perspective on employee engagement in Chief Executive Magazine. Bottom line - formalizing communication made a big difference. I assume it was along the lines of communicating vision, mission, purpose, recognition, and feedback.

It could also be along the lines of teaching/training managers to be coaches - how to listen, how to give praise, how to give feeback.

This article borders on the comical and addresses the few simple reasons why engagement tactics and strategies fail all the time to drive substantial improvements.

Number ONE issue - most companies and executives are unwilling to do the hard work.

I draw the comparison to both playing a sport and hiring.

My experience as a high school girls basketball coach is that most players are unwilling to put in the hard work to aspire to something greater - whether it is the ability to move up a team level or just make more free throws in the next game. This is the basic message by Kobe Bryant. Nothing earth-shattering about this message - it's just a continuation of what you did in high school.

The second point - most companies don't make substantial improvements in hiring because they are unwilling to do the hard work of defining success for every job, shaking the bushes for the best candidate, and investing substantial resources and time to improve the interview process.

It's like the wrecking ball is just around the corner when we become complacent, lazy, and unwilling to do hard work.

My take away here is that employees really want investment in training and development. Do you develop written personal development plans for every plan every year? Are your competitors doing this retention strategy? Have you trained your managers in how to have this career/training/development discussion with their teams?

Inc Magazine recently published this article on the myths of employee engagement. I think they may have missed the mark - not that I would disagree with a major business publication.

I don't believe companies substitute a fun work environment for true employee engagement. I do believe many CEOs and HR execs put millennials in a box. Finally,  many of my clients have weak or non-existent reward and recognition programs.

When should you start focusing on engagement issues - should it be when you've lost 10% of your best talent to your competitors in the next few years?

Some good ideas from the Zoom blog about the problems and issues around culture when everyone is working from home. Have you tried some of these ideas yet?

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?

Good summary in Chief Executive Magazine by Jack Welch regarding his two primary areas of focus - employee engagement and customer satisfaction - both of which are intimately linked.

He talks about helping employees understand what's expected, where the vision is/where you're headed, what their impact will be on it, and what it means to them personally.

I find most companies fall short in this level of communication below the executive level. Very few employees understand what's expected, where the company is headed, what their specific role/impact is in that vision, and how it translates to something personal for them. Without this communication and training managers how to do it frequently - most companies fail to achieve decent levels of engagement and consequently suffer on customer satisfaction - and the related financial metrics.

Great set of statements that are compliments for co-workers. I frequently find that workers and managers don't know what to say to each other. It's not natural for most people to be sensitive, empathic, kind, gracious, generous, and positive in their feeback.

Imagine what your culture would be like if you trained your employees to use these words with each other? Could you quantify the leap in positive energy?

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?

Do your managers micro-manage their teams? Do your managers lack the training and knowledge of how to effectively delegate?

Micro-managing and not appropriately delegating can lead to low levels of motivation, engagement, and employee effort. The best will just leave to go to your competitors. Is this an issue that your employees are raising in surveys? How do you even know if it's an issue beyond managers who have poor retention of their staff?

Most hiring managers are highly biased to lean toward extroverted candidates. I wrote a LinkedIn article a few years ago that introverted candidates were doomed to fail in interviews due to this biased mentality. Some of my very best hires have been with introverts.

This article dives a little deeper into how introverts are successful. After reading this article, does it change your interview bias? How would you pose the interview questions differently to an introvert vs. an extrovert?

Another survey on employee engagement - pretty consistent data.

80% not engaged.

64% considering looking for a job

82% want more recognition

90% want more feedback

What I don't understand is that some of these issues are very simple to fix and are basically low hanging fruit to immediately boost retention and employee engagement.

Why do most employers, especially smaller businesses, feel it's not worth the time to give more feedback, recognition, and learning/development?

I liked this article about igniting passion in your workforce. I am not sure I would use the word passion - I might replace it with focused, energized, engaged, self-motivated. When these elements occur, employees tend to show high levels of personal initiative and proactivity.

When missing, people tune out, lean outward, find other ways to become self-actualized than at work, and generally act bored and disinterested (not engaged).

One of my constant efforts as a high school girls basketball coach and management consultant around hiring/retention is to continually be taking the pulse, and developing actuion plans to keep the passion high.

What do you do frequently with your team beyond reviewing daily to-do activities?

There was one major point in this article I found most useful.  With younger generational workers you must have frequent career discussions and provide a clear roadmap of promotions, increased responsibility, and how their job will evolve as the company moves forward.

Not having these discussions at least once a quarter leaves you vulnerable to great performers leaving to go to companies that are willing to have these conversations.

How do you as a manager engage in career discussions with members of your team? Have you ever been trained formally in how to have these conversations?