Retain Top Talent

Outstanding article on the pain points of managers today. The biggest one I see is a lack of training and coaching on how to be a manager instead of a worked/contributor on the team. Many executives assume that if you have the technical skills you should be able to manage people with similar technical skills. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Most managers have no clue how to effectively manage - they are just winging it by the seat of their pants. The companies that made them managers never provided training, coaching, advice, mentoring. Poof - now you are a manager - fail or succeed - not our fault.

Scary when the research indicates that 70 percent of employee engagement and effort is due to the manager.

When do we change our approach to training and developing the manager - who has more capability to influence customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and productivity?

Interesting research from Gartner on flexible and hybrid work environments along with accountability and a management style that is more empathetic. How badly do you want to move the needle on employee productivity, customer satisfaction, and retention? Do any of these initiatives make sense in your business model?

Some good ideas as a check-list of best practices. The one that caught my attention was "just 62 percent of respondents were pleased with the career to help their employer offered."

Sometimes just communicating what the future path/vision/direction the company is headed and how your employee fits into that evolution is enough. Career development doesn't have to be about title changes.

All of my clients are screaming that they cannot find enough people, and they are starting to have trouble hanging onto their best employees. How is this shaping up for 2023?

Here's a quote from the article that stopped me in my tracks: "Only 30% of survey respondents reported loving their jobs, and one in four said they were just waiting for either a promotion or another opportunity to show up, a sign of a lack of full commitment."

Those numbers are depressing. Instead of burying our head in the sand, what initiatives willl help us proactively deal with a declining level of trust and effort in our workforce?

I found this to be a summary of SERVANT style leadership. What type of leadership defines you, and perhaps the members of your management team. Do they understand the differences of various management styles and the impact on employee engagement?

Here is another article extolling the virtues of putting intiaitives in place to raise employee engagement. What really struck me was the point about Gallup's research that 70% of the variation in employee engagement is due to an employee's manager.

The problem is that most managers are clueless about managing  - they've never been trained, developed, coached, mentored in how to manage from hiring to giving feedback. Good people - just a complete lack of understanding what it takes to drive exceptional team performance.

I am a huge proponent of measuring what we manage - especially around hiring and retention/engagement initiatives. Are we moving the needle forward on our efforts and activities to improve employee engagement? Would some of these metrics/KPIs help to shift direction, focus initiatives and resources, and tell us whether we are hitting our goals?

Some more ideas around employee engagement and keeping remote/hybrid workers connected.  In my workshop yesterday on retention and engagement - one of the big questions was "What can we do - how do we reconnect folks out of the office back to the mother ship?"

My clients are constantly asking me what can we specifically do to improve employee engagement. Here's a great list -pick one and try, Experiment, adapt one of these, don't be afraid to innovate. What's the downside?

Are there elements of your culture that are toxic? Do some employees get "tolerated? What would you change? You've heard the old statement about culture eating strategy. Why then do so few CEOs pay attention to  it? Heck - most companies couldn't define their culture to start with - most of the time it falls into the swamp of our culture is what we tolerate. Does this sound dysfunctional?

Good article on key elements of improving culture and connecting employees. Very important point here about recognition and bringing people together - whether that be virtually or in-person.

A good reminder of the importance of culture on hiring and retention. The problem is that so many companies cannot articulate their culture - and many times their is a disconnect between what management perceives the culture is and what the remainder of the workforce perceives it is. Do you have this disconnect? The key is clear, transparent communication and agreement on what the culture is and should be.

This is an interesting article on building relationships, trust, and culture. The recommendations is to occassionally bring people together, and leverage online collaboration tools for individual one-to-ones.

Interesting perspective on the evolution of employee engagement over the last few years. More important is where all of this is headed and how do we proactively handle changes in employee desires and beliefs about work life.

Many of my clients are extremely disappointed in their rewards programs that don't move the needle on employee engagement. Here is some of the underlying metrics and issues related to reward programs - are you implementing any of these initiatives?

The steps to fixing the problem that 50 percent of your workforce is looking for a new job are fairly simple. The challenge that I have is why are more companies not implementing these initiatives now?

What a novel concept - transperancy and trust. Maybe starting with groups defining goals and outcomes together for each team member. Most companies treat employees like they are mushrooms in a dark cave.

Interesting model for performance management. Would some of these ideas help to improve the process, tracking, and reporting of performance management.

A significant number of employees look for greener pastures when they don't feel they are growing. I think the authors of this article misinterpret growth as company expansion vs. personal job growth. I have yet to see a company that can't provide additional job growth in every role - autonomy, flexibility, learning, training, projects, challenges, asking for higher performance, coaching for the next job expansion. When people feel like they are stagnating - they are open to considering leaving. How many of your employees are stagnating?