Retain Top Talent

So many of my clients are still stuck in a 70s model of command-control, autocratic, and negative focused annual performance reviews. Perhaps, it's because that's what they learned growing up in the baby boomer generation. It no longer works!

Have you considered moving to continuous performance management like this article recommends - particularly in a hybrid-remote work environment?

Interesting article on the thought process of shifting from an old-school mentality that everyone must be together in the office for collaboration and determining if they were working hard to a more flexible work environment embracing work from home. Have you considered this shift or are you still stuck in a 1970s model of management, oversight, and lack of trust regarding your employees? This might become the edge by which companies are able to attract better talent in the future.

Many of my clients struggle to think about strategies and tactics to engage frontline employees. Here is a good article on how to engage those frontline folks. How many of these tactics are you using in your organization?

A decent article in Fast Company to consider the development/refinement of your culture in a virtual/remote world. My big question is: Are you doing anything right now to be working on improving your culture or is this at the bottom of your priority list?

Key points in the article: measuring results, culture, teamwork, and the Manager as the lynchpin. Same exact things I've been discussing with my clients for the last 4 months. No one seems be putting much energy or focus behind these ideas. In most companies, it's business as usual = nothing is different than when everyone was in the office.

I'm pulling together resources that could serve as reinforcing material for my virtual Vistage Complimentary one hour program on Managing Remotely in a  workshop. One of the elements I talk about is conducting more effective one-to-ones with folks working virtually/remotely. Here's a good article from Fortune.com on some questions to ask in those one-to-ones.

I heard a fellow speaker the other day make the comment that "all companies are now technology companies."

Unfortunately, about half the organizations I deal with are still stuck in a 1970s model of working. I am awe of the tools/apps available to improve communication, execution, performance, recognition, and so on. Not exploring these tools basically means you are allowing your competitors to become much more productive - and they will eventually bypass you on all dimensions of success.

None of this should be a surprise, particularly given Gallups research that shows 50-70 percent of your employees are not engaged. All the studies that have been done over the last decade or more show pretty consistent results of employee dissatisfaction, disengagement, and consequently low productivity.

As I am demonstrating to many Vistage Groups in my talk on Managing Remotely in a Criss - these issues get amplified with folks working outside of the office. Are you accepting low productivity or working on initiatives to let it SOAR?

In my complimentary workshops for Vistage Groups on Managing Remotely in a Crisis we've been talking about the need for leveraging technology to improve communications. Many companies are still stuck ina 1970s model of old-school communication even with a hybrid model of some staff in the office and some remote. EVERYONE is now a technology company. Are you helping your employees to be successful or do they feel like mushrooms in the dark.

One of the topics I speak on in my complimentary presentation for Vistage Groups titled Managing Remotely in a Crisis is for managers to show empathy toward their team members.

Here's that key point being reinforced. The key is training managers how to be empathic - since for most managers it is not naturally occuring.

Here's the quote:

"Be trained on practicing empathy during this extreme situation. This can start as a weekly session and everyone can share their real-life stories where they displayed empathy with each other.

This allows your employees and supervisors to understand each other and this approach drives employee engagement and productivity in the whole team."

Fascinating TED talk presentation on the flip side of focusing on customer satisfaction by examining the impact of employee satisfaction and the gap in effort, productivity, and impact.

The problem with studies showing that the trend with remote work is increasing and will continue to increase/speed along due to the COVID challenges.

The unfortunate news is that most companies are ill-prepared to managed remote workers. I'm covering 8 key points in my 90 minute Virtual Vistage Workshops on Managing Remotely in a Crisis. The lack of pivoting, innovation, best practices, and changing cultures due to remote workers is almost zero. Most organizations are applying the same tactics of managing they've been using in physical proximity over the last few decades. It DOES NOT WORK anymore.

Expectations of work performance are non-existent, employee engagement and productivity is weak. communication is horrific, and employees feel cast aside, lonely, out of sync with the team and culture.

Let's fix these fundamental problems of how to manage remotely before throwing more people into home office environments.

Some good reminders and insight into the role of the manager/leaders as coach. How to not fall victim to having problems (the monkeys) transferred onto your back. Plus, he quotes one of my favorite - Zig Ziglar.

Good reminders of very basic elements of engaging employees and being a good boss to work for vs. a jerk. In this time of extraordinary stress - Covid,  business depression, and social unrest - we sometimes forget or skip the basics.

Good article around the idea of employee experience - which contributes to employee engagement and thus higher productivity. Are you executing on a few of these tactics to improve your employee experience?

Have you considered gamification around some of your employee engagement initiatives, such as supporting teammates, exhibiting core values, going above and beyond for a customer or teammate, coming up with a recommendation/suggestion for improvement, making referrals - the list is endless. This article does a good job walking through gamifying activities to drive behavior or action. It's all the time in the sales function - why not everywhere else in the organization?

One element of conducting an effective one-to-on I suggest in my workshops on Engaging Employees - You're the Person We Want to Keep, and in my workshop Managing Remotely in a Crisis is the idea of conducting a LIB Discussion (Learning, Impact, and Becoming). In HR terminology this is called a Stay Interview. It's a powerful way to re-engage your employees. I recommend spending 15-20 minutes on this LIB dialogue at least once a quarter. See my LinkedIn article on what questions to ask and how to stimulate this conversation.

Interesting perspective on thinking about oyour company culture - how do you get people to do the right things without creating a rigid rules based organization?

Some of my clients worry that starting down the path of employee engagement will be expensive - giving out awards, hiring an HR professional, creating a budget. This recent Forbes article talks about how to do it on a shoestring budget. One of the shoestring tactics they mention is my favorite one to talk about in my workshops on employee engagement and retention - giving praise. Doesn't cost a dime - but most companies so poorly use it that it's bordering on a worthless tactic. You might consider training your management team how to be better at showing empathy, gratitude, appreciation, and being thankful for the work your employees do daily.

Is your HR manager/director disconnected from what employees want/need in their jobs? Interesting counter-intuitive article suggesting that HR professionals are out of touch with the idea of employee experience/employee engagement.

Recognition is the second most important element of engaging employees to drive high productivity. Why then do most companies give it little focus or effort. In at least 75% of the companies I have engaged with in the 60 complimentary 90 minute workshops I've done for Vistage Groups there is no comprehensive program for non-monetary rewards and recognition.

The result is a shameful level of low productivity since the majority of your employees believe that you don't care if they work hard and put in extra effort.

Some really good tips for communicating with employees in a Crisis by HBR. How do relieve some of the fear, anxiety, apprehension, separation loss, and sense of divorce from the culture? How do you help move folks out of Maslow's level of Safety and Security concerns - hard to be productive when I'm worried about whether I'll have a job.

What are some of the key elements in driving employee engagement, productivity, and effort - autonomy, decision making, authority, control over their work, not being micro-managed.

Good article coming at the issue of how do you empower your employees? This quote of a survey is frightening:

"those who felt disempowered were rated at the 24th percentile of engagement while those with a high level of empowerment came in at the 79th percentile."

Are you in the bottom quartertile of engagement (productivity) becuase your employees feel powerless to effect/impact their job?

Interesting article on the Fortune.com website related to a blended experience of working remotely and having people in the office. It''s going to be hard to put the "genie" back in the bottle after giving people a taste of working remotely. Are you preparing for the new abnormal environment of a blended work experience?

The author identifies such basic elements of personal growth, impact, and learning that allow you to retain top performers. How basic can you get? Simple Maslow Hierarchy of Needs elements. Yet, most organizations fail miserably to engage their best performers. Over time, literally like a brain drain, these folks leave for greener pastures.

Your best performers are your Pareto Group - where you get 80 percent of your results from the top 20 percent. This is the group we should be nurturing, hand-holding, encouragin, and challenging. Yet, in most companies the vast manjority of leaders feel that since these folks are the most independent, self-starters, and self-motivated - they don't need pats on the back and emotional support. WRONG!

When this group starts to trickle out the door, you're in real trouble. What specific plans/initiatives do you have in place to keep these folks from considering "is the grass greener somewhere else?"