Retain Top Talent

Is your employee recognition program stalled, dying, or becoming stale - perhaps it's time to revive the program since recognition is one of the most important elements (right behind people understanding what's expected of them) in driving engagement, productivity, effort, happiness, and retention.

Sometimes my clients get caught up in thinking it's just about money. The reality is that there are a number of other factors as important - or more important than money.

Some thoughts about keeping people centered around flex time/hybrid arrangements, pay, and learning-growth-advancement. A unfortunate number of your employees may be considering making a move because they don't understand, or the communication on these topics with their manager is woefully inadequate. Can you fix this before a valued employee leaves?

I'm a big believer that you have to measure and track something if you want to improve it. What was it Deming said about measurements - if you can't measure it's probably not worth managing. When should we start tracking metrics and KPIs like eNPS?

These terms of employee engagement and employee experience get tossed around  - what's the difference? I also noted that a slew of recent articles are starting to focus on employee burnout. A lot of writers appear to be jumping on this trend.

My perception is that the workload is not dramatically different over time or for different generations. I wonder if the younger generations that are disengaged and unhappy are using burnout as their excuse for a lack of effort?

Here's the number one issue most executives and managers tell me is their biggest concern about hybrid/remote work - they don't trust the employees to work hard and fulfill their expectations.

Here's a great overview of employee engagement - the basic foundation and rationale for doing it, the benefits, and some different models or approaches to implementation.

Bottom line - start doing something. Just because your employees show up every day doesn't mean they are engaged. Nothing could be further from the truth. At what point should you start to put an employee engagement strategy together as opposed to waiting for hope and luck to intervene?

I talk extensively about 5-6 key initiatives in employee engagement that are low hanging fruit in my Vistage workshop "You're the Person We Want to Keep!" #PowerofVistage

Here's another perspective on the recent Gallup research on Employee Engagement. Notice at the top of the list is a lack of recognition. Next to not defining expectations, recognition becomes the next most important area of whether your employees in your Vistage business either lean in and give you 100 percent effort or they lean back and give you the rock bottom minimum effort they think you'll tolerate for allowing them to receive a payroll check.

Is it time to start boosting employee engagement to drive profit, productivity, turnover down, and improve customer satisfaction/engagement?

I emphasize these points in my key workshop on engagement for Vistage titled "You''re the Person We Want to Keep". What I don't understand is why so many companies refuse to put initiatives in place to recognize and reward their employees. #PowerofVistage

Is one of the toxic elements of your workplace where some of your employees feel they can bully others through passive-aggressive behaviors, micro-aggressions, and outright harrassment- particularly how men treat women? Is this an element of your culture you would like to stop?

Here's a more academic look at the issue of engagement-disengagement. The professor reinforces the points I've been making in my last few posts about whether we sit back, "stick to our guns", and ignore the research, trends, and common sense related to work - or we start taking action to make a difference.

In the thousands of companies I've worked with over the last decade, less than 1 percent have effectively moved the needle on employee engagement into the 80 percent plus range from the research that shows it fluctuating between 20-30 percent. The outcomes are dramatic.

What's the difference between mediocre minimal engagement and exceptional engagement. The companies that have moved the needle have made engagement/retention a process rather than a random event or something that gets left up to each individual manager.

If you could even achieve half of these outcomes, wouldn't improving employee engagement and implementing a few initiatives around it be worthwhile. In a survey of more than 500 senior executives we found most CEOs, company presidents, and key executives haven't done this because "they don't know what to do."  Total blame game. The reality is that they just don't think their employees matter enough to want to invest in making sure they are happy, engaged, growing, learning, having an impact, being productive. We're still stuck in most companies in a 1970s model of command-and-control leadership - come in, sit down, shut up, do your work, and don't make waves. Plenty of people I could replace you with. Who would want to work in this environment?

Is it any surprise why engagement has dropped from 30 to 20 percent, 50 percent of employees are looking for a new job, and turnover, poaching, productivity numbers are all trending in the wrong direction?

An interesting article about leveraging apps and digital tools to make hybrid/remote work easier. In my last few Vistage presentations I was surprised the lag of digital workplace tools to encourage communication, performance management, recogition, and culure.

Every company is now a digital company - the problem is that the IT infrastructure in most companies supporting employees has not kept pace with the move to hybrid/remote work. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons dissatisfaction, disappointment, and disengagement is on the post-Covid rise.

Some key points I stressed in my workshop during Covid titled "Managing in a Remote Environment" which is as relevant today as it was in March 2020. Key points and take-aways: remote recognition, 1-to-1s for performance management, coaching, and feedback. Lots of communication, and well-defined expectations.

Are you not jumping on the remote/hybrid bandwagon because you don't trust your employees? Perhaps, it's not an issue of trust but one of having appropriate infrastructure, managerial training, and process.

I cannot emphasize enough the need to KILL the traditional performance appraisal annual process and replace it with regular monthly one-to-one coaching.

I really liked this article that laid in detail a mapping approach over the journey of an employee's experience in your company. A good start would be a formal mapping of the on-boarding experience beyond filling out paperwork.

I thought this was an interesting article - although written for machine shop owners - applies to a broad variety of work place environments. Are any of these toxic work place elements invading your business and affecting your culture.

What's the old saying "you are what you tolerate" Do your employees perceive your culture from the perspective of what the management team tolerates?

The hot new buzzword is your employees "rage applying" to other jobs - particularly in the face of an unknown future. The phrase that struck me in this article was "ack of, or miscommunication is often the root cause of problems" Are your managers communicating enough with their team members about the future?

Forbes highlighted the drop in Gallup's engagement numbers - first time in a decade. What's going on? Is it time to start considering putting a few engagement initiatives in place?

The greatest problem or failure point in hiring, performance management and accountability, and in employee engagement is NOT having clear, precise, quantifiable definitions of success. Like the article talks about - your job descriptions are superficial, ambiguous, generic, and fuzzy.

Putting a little more rigor around this process can dramatically improve your success in hiring better people and engaging your employees for full productivity and effort.

I speak to these topics on hiring, engagement, and performance management in my two core Vistage workshops "You're NOT the Person I Hired" and "You're the Person We Want to Keep". The central theme running through both is the concept of needing to define success for every role in the organization. #PowerofVistage

If you're struggling to think about how to reward/recognize your employees - here are some ideas and tactics to consider.

Next to the number one issue of not defining expectations for a role, not providing comprehensive reward and recognition is the number two reason you may be getting less than adequate effort and productivity from your Vistage company employees.

One of the key elements I stress in my Vistage workshop is building a culture of recognition and reward when people knock it out of the park, exhibit one of your core values, get a high five from a customer - to name just a few.

When should you begin to build this as a key pillar in your Vistage business? #PowerofVistage

Here's Gallup's latest research on employee engagement- notice the decline and the biggest reason is lack of clarity around expectations. I realize it's hard work to define expectations - but if you could as a Vistage Member dramatically boost productivity, lower turnover, increase profits, and improve customer satisfaction - why would you not attempt to define expectations for every job? #PowerofVistage

Interesting perspective on supporting not rewarding employees through cost of living increases and pain. Most employers think the only solution is to raise salaries - but there are alternatives.

Two ideas in this article that I really like to improve employee engagement in hybrid work environments: peer to peer recognition (part of a broader campaign of comprehensive non-monetary reward and recognition), and mentoring.

Some very basic ideas about improving employee engagement and retention: clear reasonable expections, improving communications (whatever you're doing is not enough), and ensuring their is a focused effort around developing people. Number one reason why employees - boredom and lack of growth!

Here are some thoughts behind dos/donts of recognition. I like the first one:

"Stop using the demeaning and demotivating annual performance appraisal"