Retain Top Talent

Are some of your managers who lead the bulk of your employees having issues about their own engagement. Front line employees observe this attitude and become disengaged when their boss is disengaged.

Here's the quote that reinforced this idea:

"Leader disengagement often happens for the same reasons as employee disengagement. They don’t feel respected by their manager, they don’t feel like they have a say in decision making, and they aren’t kept in the loop in terms of communication. Finally, they usually don’t receive enough positive feedback and appreciation themselves as leaders. Lack of leader motivation and engagement tends to breed cynicism, sarcasm, and negativity in the leader."

Here's the quote that reinforces most of the attitudes about remote work. 

“If I can’t see them working, how do I know they’re actually working?”

This sums up the managerial attitude of the vast majority of my clients. It covers for the excuse of not investing time to define expectations, conduct on-going performance management through one-to-ones, and learning how to coach teams.

Rather than staying stuck in a 1070s command-control mode, when we start working on the things that raise employee engagement and lead to increased productivity, we actually don't have to see our subordinates doing work to trust they are being productive.

I know it's hard to let go of tribal management practices and the tactics that most managers were taught (direct line of sight). The question is when will you start experimenting with best practices to unleash the productivity in your employees that you are missing?

As you start to consider bringing employees back into the office, are you taking this opportunity to go beyond putting up plexiglass shields and moving desks 6 feet apart?

Are you considering a complete redesign based on best practices for a great work environment = I'm noticing that some of my clients who have redesigned their workspace before the COVID crisis, were starting to reap the benefits of increased satisfaction and productivity.

Are you going to return to "business as usual" or use this time period as an excuse to blow up your preconceived notions of office space?

My experience over 30 years of working with small businesses and entrepreneurial organizations is that the ones who manage to achieve creating high performing teams are those that dedicate specific time to team building activities.

A good reminder of some of the key elements to think about related to employee engagement. Which one of these could you focus on to improve your employee engagement - and raise productivity.

I agree with this recommendation by the author 100 percent.  Are you staying in touch with your terminated or furloughed employees? How are you maintaining a strong relationship with the folks you might want to hire back?

As you know, I've been doing a webinar on How to Manage Remotely which takes all our content over 2 decades on hiring, performance management, and employee engagement and mashes it together with the element of working remotely.

The first of 8 elements I cover in this webinar is that companies must provide the infrastructure to allow employees to work well with each other. Here's the statistic that shocked me:

The Right Technology. According to a recent Gartner poll, 54% of HR leaders reported that poor technology and/or infrastructure for remote working is the single largest barrier to its success. This “technology” category encompasses everything from email to internal messaging platforms to video conferencing tools.

This is pretty consistent with the comments shared by CEOs in my webinars.  If this is a barrier to getting work done - what does that say about the productivity of your organization?

Here's a novel idea - how about involving your employees in decision making around layoffs and cost reductions - counterintuitive idea from HBR.

I'm curious if any of you have tried this compared to the traditional method of top-down instead of bottom-up?

I didn't find this article to live up to the headline about how to go from good to great in employee engagement. It offered a few simple suggestions.

What caught my eye was the couple of studies they mentioned that showed employees think their employer has blown it during the Corona Virus Crisis. These studies ranged from 45-55%. I saw one the other day that said 75% felt their employer had done a terrible job.

If those stats/surveys are accurate and reflect what's going on in your organization, what's your plan to fix it?

Some key points to think about regarding employee engagement with referencing some major studies and statistics.

Is there any reason why we would not want to work on raising employee engagement? How about increased profits, higher  customer retention, greater productivity?

Is there any reason why we would not want to invest time and effort in growing employee engagement?

How do you have difficult conversations and messaging with your employees when the future is uncertain? How do you give them hope, reassurance, comfort - without false or misleading information? This article provides some good ideas around overcoming the fear that is gripping many of your employees about their future job status.

Key points in this article about keeping it personal and not micro-managing. Unfortunately, we seem to violate both ideas.

While folks are working from home, many managers appear to have slipped into a mode of only talking about tasks and activities, and have forgotten how to show empathy, appreciation, caring, and sensitivity for their team members. Maybe it's time for some remedial managerial training on empathy.

Here's the quote that got my attention:

"Gallup found that just one in three U.S. employees felt they’d received recognition for a job well done in the past week."

That's a horrible metric. What are you doing to build a strong recognition program into the fabric of your culture?

You'll never realize high productivity from your workforce until they feel you appreciate their effort through recognition.

Interesting article in Fast Company challenging the idea of bringing folks back into the office now that restrictions are lifting. Have you considered a hybrid approach to home/office work?

Some interesting ideas of how Trader Joes creates a unique culture starting at hiring and on-going to reinforce the culture. Perhaps, a few of these ideas might apply to your organization?

Loved the Wall of Happy described in this article. The statistic that rocked me a little was the one about 4 out 5 employees indicated they would work harder if praised/patted on the back.

It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but the author is suggesting that even in the middle of a crisis like the Corona Virus - it might be the perfect time to do an employee survey and measure current engagement levels.

A really good article on defining culture, and details about how to build/refine your culture. Most interesting statistic was:

85 percent of organizations fail in transforming their cultures.

If 85% fail to transform/improve their culture - what's the biggest pain point?

First the bad news: 20% turnover in first 45 days. Horrible!

What I liked about the article was what has been known up to this point as an on-boarding plan - takes on a new dimension as a customized employee engagement plan for each new hire.

What if you did this with every new hire?

As you start to contemplate the idea of some of your employees wanting to return to the office, what about those who still want some flexibility to work from home?

Do you still have a bias against your team working part-time or full time from home? Flexibility to work from home and flexibility around work schedule is a powerful employee engagement tactic.

On-boarding is the first step in ensuring a great employee experience starting on Day 1. Unfortunately, many companies are stuck in a 1970s model of onboarding. Are you prepared to start outstanding employee engagement with the first day of work?