Retain Top Talent

Here's an interesting article in forbes online.

"a staggering 60-90% of strategic plans never fully materialize. Moreover, our ability to predict the future is often flawed. In fact, around 40% of CFOs surveyed admitted that their forecasts are usually inaccurate and time-consuming."

My research indicates that 80 percent of all corporate tactical initiatives - IT, mergers, acquisitions, new product launches - fail miserably. It comes down to a lack of execution.

My focus is on why do most employee engagement initiatives fail horrifically to achieve their desired outcomes?

One of the major reasons employees - especially new hires - become disenchanted with your company is the lack of learning, feedback, and coaching. If coaching in sports works so well in helping teams and athletes perform at a higher level, why can't we apply that same concept in a business setting.

Here are some eye-catching stats on the impact of coaching:

"A report in Harvard Business Review found that employees were 44% more productive after receiving regular coaching, while the Institute of Coaching suggests that coaching can improve employee performance by 70%." Gallup has shown that 70 percent or more of engagement is related to a manager.

Given those studies, are you teaching your managers how to be great coaches? Or are your employees quiet quitting their bosses?

Here's a litany of why employees leave their jobs - the first few are eye-opening. Are you purposely driving employees away from you through the lack of effective retention and engagement tactics?

My most successful clients spend an enormous amount of time focusing on defining their culture, building it into their hiring process and interview questions, measuring it with employees in feedback and performance reviews, and tying it into every aspect of employee management and leadership.

How hard are you working to make your culture a competitive advantage?

Most companies are not working very hard on employee retention (the employee experience, happiness, culture, engagement).

Here's the number ONE issue:

"People don’t quit jobs; they quit bosses. If your senior role leaders don’t know how to lead, then your best performers will be gone before you know it. So, anyone who says you can retain top talent without some serious leadership development is pulling your leg."

The vast majority of companies are horrible at developing executives and managers to be great leaders of their teams. Most executives and managers are clueless about best practices in leading people - they are good people but leading by hope and luck.

Is it time for some remedial level of training around core best practices in managing and leading people?

Here are some excellent ways to reward your employees that is not about money. This could be one of your greatest levers to drive higher levels of motivation, effort, and productivity. How strong and comprehensive is your non-monetary and reward and recognition system?

Interesting article listing various generational issues around engagement and incorporating Gallup's research. 

At the heart of employee satisfaction, productivity, output, success, and retention are goals and KPIs. Why do so many companies leave this as a loose or non-existent process?

Research shows that the majority of employee satisfaction and performance comes as a result of the manager-subordinate relationship. Are you training your managers how to become great managers of people in hiring and retaining teams OR are they just "winging it" based on their life experiences?

I really like the idea of giving gifts as a show of appreciation, gratitude and thankfulness. It appears to be more thoughtful than just cash or a thank you card. Do you have a program that for certain types of appreciation, your company gives thoughtful gifts?

The current work environment is such that very few employees in admin/white collar jobs want to work full time in the office. At the same time, most companies have not changed how they engage or communicate as a large portion of their workforce has gone remote or hybrid.

I see very few companies leveraging the outstanding digital apps and tools available to improve engagement, connectivity, and feeling part of the mother ship. Every company is now a technology company - if you're not leveraging these tools - then your rapidly falling behind in the ability to attract and keep great talent.

Where do you stand on the use of digital/technology tools to improve employee engagement and connectivity?

A lot of good points about engaging your unmotivated employees are raised in this article. My experience is that most companies do a terrible job around these elements - or they focus too much on just one or two of the elements instead of comprehensive plan.

One of the greatest leverage points in a business is the ability of your managers to create high performing teams. Most managers fail miserably at the process of creating a high performing team. Here is one of the reasons this happens. Are you A "Seagull Manager?

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I like the idea of using gamification to stimulate and motivate employees around performance, collaboration, and learning. Have you tried any of these tactic in your organization?

Next to not defining expectations, having a non-existent or weak non-monetary reward and recognition system can lead to underperforming employees. Here's a quote from the article based on Gallup research:

Gallup's research shows that only one in three U.S. workers feels engaged, and a staggering 79% of job departures are attributed to a "lack of appreciation."

Almost 80 percent of employee resignations are based on a lack of appreciation. Are some of your best employees looking at job boards and talking to recruiters because your appreciation program is horrible?

I've been stressing this idea for a couple of years. One of the greatest gaps in managerial performance is the lack of ability to hire stars for their team. The vast majority of managers are good people - they are just clueless about best practices in hiring top performers. They've never been trained, coached, mentored, managed for this critical component of success.

Is it time for some remedial training to help managers be better at one of their core job expectations?

Here's the quote that caught my attention:

"only a quarter of remote and hybrid workers felt connected to their organization’s mission and values, according to a Gartner poll in December 2021."

The question is what are you doing to promote/enhance your remote/hybrid workers to the mother ship?

Here's a quick podcast on the importance of measuring both NPS and eNPS. Many of my clients struggle with measuring employee engagement, satisfaction, productivity, effort - here a couple of metrics that bring all those concepts together. Are you measuring NPS and eNPS - or are you afraid what the metrics might show if you actually measured it?

Here's another interesting article on employee engagement - or how do you keep that recent hire you worked so hard to acquire? 

The article starts off a little depressing sharing some of the downward trending data from Gallup's recent research - then the author makes the following point:

"But not all companies fell prey to these downward trends. Some companies managed to achieve 70% employee engagement during the most disruptive periods and ended up earning up to 23% more profit on average because of it."

How did they do it?

Do you tolerate a toxic culture or put up with bad behavior from your management team who sets the example for everyone else? Are you actually driving people away instead of attracting them like a magnet?

Number one issue - not clearly defining success!

The quote from the article should scare you: Studies show that about 85% of leaders don't define their team's focus, and employees lack clarity about their goals or KPIs.

I would lend credibility to this study by reflecting on the thousands of Vistage companies I've worked with over the last 20 years. Very few demonstrate any rigor around defining, measuring, and leveraging performance expectations.

Here's the other scary statistic from the article - what a great way to manage - keeping your employees in the dark. "A whopping 93% of employees aren't clear on their organization's objectives."

Gallup's first question on their engagement survey is "Do I know what's expected of me?" I'm shocked by the surveys shared by my clients in how many of their employees answer NO to this question?

What's the implication - poor retention, low productivity, apathy, weak culture, ineffective hiring, and getting left behind by your competitors. When is the right time to start making changes?

Here's an interesting take from Forbes on linking performance management and career development as a method of improving employee performance and improving retention/engagement. How do your managers communicate and interact with their subordinates around linking these two elements together?

Although this article is a little of the author's self-promotion, there are some very good points about culture, engagement, and retention - very similar to the research Gallup publishes. How many of these elements are you currently executing on as an initiative to improve employee morale, passion, retention, engagement and perhaps most importantly, productivity?

This article caught my eye. One of the elements that makes recruiting so easy is that the vast majority of employees are bored in their jobs - stagnant, mundane, non-compelling or interesting roles. They are not growing, learning, or improving their skills and capabilities to gain better opportunities or higher compensation. 

It's so very sad!

Recruiter proofing your company means changing the mental framework about how we define work and expectations.

Are you still stuck in a 1970s command-and-control structure around work?