Retain Top Talent

As you probably know, I talk extensively about how rewards, recognition, and appreciation is the next most important element to employee engagement (productivity) after defining success for the role.

Do you have a strong peer to peer recognition as a best practice in rewards and recognition for your organization?

Let's shatter some myths that managers have about their remote/hybrid work team - for example - I was very surprised about the "tone it down" on communication myth.

Most companies I come across in my executive search and consulting practice claim they have a great culture - but they lack a core element of appreciation, gratitude, recognition, and thankfulness. How do your managers execute on a daily basis around showing appreciation? Is it time for some remedial training of your management team around this critical element of an outstanding culture.

Always looking for a little managerial humor. Bosses are always getting a bad rap - maybe for good reason after you read this article. I've been preaching over the last few years about how important the boss is in driving engagement/productivity.

We've known this to be an issue for quite some time. Studies are starting to show the effect of stress and anxiety on engagement and productivity. The big question is how your organization is responding to this new trend and potential crisis given the fact that we're going to be in a Covid-related environment probably well into 2022.

Some interesting insights into your workforce - particulary the disengaged who don't care whether they continue working for you  - new study pegs it at 25 percent. I believe it's much higher - particularly if you look at the Gallup research.

Good article by BambooHR on the Dos and Don'ts of employee recognition. As I indicted earlier, many companies have just zoned out on the need to increase employee recognition, rewards, sensitivity, empathy during COVID. My argument is that we should all be doubling down to show how much we appreciate our employees.

This article caught my attention. Do you work in a toxic work environment? Should you be asking yourself these questions? As a key executive, leader, or CEO - you are what you tolerate. If the complaints I hear from my clients are indicative of what's going on in most companies as tolerated behavior - then I am seriously worried about the state of employee engagement and retention.

Many of my clients have been lamenting to me for the past few months about underperforming team members and whether they should fire them and replace with them with someone better.

There are lot of things you can do to improve an employee's performance before you reach for the trap door lever. First, are the expectations and results desired clear, precise, quantifiable, and metric based? Are they written down and have you and your employee agreed to them together? Secondly, how often are you having one-to-ones and improving your coaching of your employees? Finally, are you actively working on employee engagement initiatives such as creating personal development plans and implementing a rigorous employee appreciation and recognition program? Simple steps to dramatically boost performance, effort, initiative, motivation, and proactivity.

One of the topics I cover in my workshop on improving employee engagement is that it starts at the on-boarding process. Many companies are weak to non-existent with best practices in on-boarding. Here are a few key ideas to try in your organization.

Here's the quote that breaks my heart about people:

"92% of employees would stay with a company if their managers showed a little more empathy"

When I talk about sensitivity/empathy - and the need to train managers how to show more of it in my Vistage workshops on employee engagment - most CEOS-Senior Executives look at me like I'm nuts. That seems way to touchy-feely or squishy to them.

The studies bear out that the manager is the primaryinfluencer of employee engagement and productivity, and most employees feel their manager doesn't show enough empathy and sensitivity.

I've never seen studies showing the breakdown of managers between those who have high sensitivity/empathy and those who lack it.  My ancetodal research indicates that most managers are Type A - aggressive, dominant, caring more about results than people.

How do you balance the need for showing empathy in your culture when your management team doesn't have this capability?

Interesting article on the Forbes website talking about employee engagement/satisfaction/happiness in terms of vitamins are pain-killers. Unfortunately, the concepts discussed are so far out in left field that many companies might have trouble considering these ideas.

One of my big hot buttons is helping employees understand how they matter to what the organization is attempting to achieve. One of the key elements around matterness is the idea of purpose and whether it motivates employees. Let's start at a very basic level - do you have a purpose for your organization? Have you answered the "WHY" question?

Do you make performance discussion a two-way street? Interesting article on including an employee self-appraisal as part of your performance management-appraisal process.

Interesting article on performance management - particularly questions around feedback. The author suggests feedback is not as important as it once was since everyone feels that's the standard = unfortunately many companies still suffer from a basic last of effective feedback by managers. Is it time to reassess managerial skills in giving feedback. Many CEOs assume that if their direct reports carry manager level titles, they must understand how to give feedback. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I cannot stress enough the importance of a vibrant employee recognition and reward program. Here are some additional ideas to consider in recognition and rewards. Next to the lack of NOT defining success, a weak or non-existent recognition and rewards program is the secon reason you see a lack of engagement and productivity in your organization.

This article caught my attention. In my executive search practice I focus on interviewing for exceptional talent - those who have a passion for self-improvement, learning, and development. I look for people who have developed a high degree of mental toughness like resilience, focus, effort, overcoming adversity, taking initiative, being proactive, and tenacity. You can develop all these traits - you're not born with them.

Here's my question: If you can teach yourself these core traits of success and a few others - why don't you do it? The payoff to applying yourself at a completely different level is enormous. We don't do it because it's really hard work! Most people are happy being complacent, being average, accepting their lot in life as a given that they cannot change - because they dont want to make the effort to be better.

What's your pain threshold for being ready to change your mindset and your behaviors?

Interesting article on potential failure points of executives and managers. Many times in interviews we except the rationalizations and excuses of why they didn't succeed. Or they blame it one others. Could their failure be linked to their own behavioral flaw - how do we flush this out in the interview?

Good thorough article on performance management and best practices. Are you starting to adopt some of these ideas in your performance management?

Do you celebrate personal milestones of your employees. One milestone not mentioned you should be celebrating are when your employees take part in non-profit, social activities that are not political - like helping at a soup kitchen, food bank, or organizing a dinner drive for local hospital workers.  Are all of your employees tuned into what's going on in the lives of their teammates?

I've seen many companies drop this caring, empathy, and recognition during Covid as if people don't matter anymore. NOW is when we should be emphasizing these personal milestones.

You might consider sharing this aricle with your employees who are working from a home office to improve their productivity.

Obviously the author of this article is biased in thinking there list falls in the top 14. However, there were a couple in this article that are pretty consistent from best practice article to article over the past decade. These become amplified in a hybrid work environment. Some of the best ones include clairty about goals, raising the amount of communication, and starting to get managers to stop focusing on employee weaknesses and start focusing on coaching. Finally, there is a need to inject a little bit of humor into the work environment during this covid crisis - my perspective is that many of us have lost our sense of being playful, having fun, joking around, and enjoying each other as teammates.

So many of my clients lack the skills and knowledge of how to have a performance based one-to-one. I talk about this extensively in my Vistage workshop titled Managing Remotely in a Crisis. It becomes very important to have frequent one-to-ones when your team is remote. Excellent article on the steps of having a coaching conversation.

One of the programs I do for Vistage Groups is on Employee Retention and Engagment (productivity). A key tool and simple tactic that emerges from this workshop is re-investment in people. One of my recommendations is that every employee should have a personal development plan - 1 or 2 things that could help them to become more effective and have a greater impact. Is this part of your cultural fabric?

It's especially important for your top performers - the pareto group  where you get 80% of your results. If you're not aggressively developing this group, you risk losing them to competitors.

Good article from HBR on raising employee engagement and productivity through autonomy. How are you providing your remote workers during the pandemic with more autonomy to encourage productivity?