Retain Top Talent

Some interesting questions to think about whether you're toxic at work or you have toxic people on your team. When you see these behaviors in your teammates, do you immediately stop and address them. Your employees perceive your culture as what you are willing to tolerate as their boss.

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?

In my workshops for Vistage Groups on Managing Remotely in a Crisis, many members complain of Zoom Fatigue. Here is an article on how to overcome this issue in your organization - since it appears it's going to be awhile before we're all back together in person.

This is an interesting idea for on-boarding. I actually had to do this years ago when starting a couple of new jobs. I think it's great way to gain appreciation for what goes on in other departments and a way to get to know folks.

Have you tried out this on-boarding idea in your organization. Even if it's not job rotation, it could at least be a shadowing experience.

Many of my clients look to me for specific language and vehicles through which they can recognize their employees - showing gratitude, appreciation, and being thankful. Geniune caring human behavior. I find that many managers struggle to show their appreciation because they have never been coached on how to do it. Secondly, I observe during this hard economic time and health care crisis, many managers have lost their caring and sensitivity. Unless your culture reinforces the need to show it, most of the time appreciation, recognition, and thanking others just falls through the cracks. Is your organization guilty of this?

I especially liked the paragraph in this article on getting creative around engaging, motivating, involving, stimulating, building team cohesion. The problem is that most companies can't even begin to explore these creative ideas because they haven't yet implemented the basic fundamentals of employee engagement like defining success for the role, having a great recognition process, and doing frequent discussions (one to ones) around subjects of learning, impact, and becoming - stay interviews.

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.

Recent report reinforces importance of employee engagement initiatives. Here's the quote:

"81% of business leaders strongly agree that highly engaged employees perform better and are more productive."

So my question is why are so few companies making such little effort around improving employee engagement and employee experience?

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.

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?

Loved the various ideas in this article to stimulate team - culture interaction, learning about each other, and building strong relationships.

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?

From one of my favorite publications - Psychology Today - on the importance of employee recognition and why most companies/managers struggle with this issue. It is the number 2 element of why you're not seeing appropriate levels of productivity from your workforce - you're employees don't think you care.

Here's one of the key points I've been advocating in my workshop for Vistate Groups - Managing Remotely in a Crisis!

Here's the quote that grabbed me in the article:

Three out of five employees believe employee recognition and appreciation is more important while working from home, yet only one out of five employees (26%) say their company has implemented new ways to reward and recognize them since the current pandemic started"

One of the most powerful elements to drive motivation, engagement, and productivity is showing appreciation, recognition, gratitude. It's shameful not to have a strong recognition program.

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?

In down job markets (30 million unemployed heading for 45 million before the end of the year), networking vs. advertising becomes the dominant method of job hunting for top performers.

Studies show that 80-85% of all jobs never get advertised - they are filled through informal networks and referrals. Unfortunately, most job hunters don't start thinking about the strength of their networks until they desperately need a job. Always be networking.

Employee recongition is such a powerful tool - and the benefits come from so many areas as this article simply describes. I keep scratching my head why more companies don't embark upon a path of creating a comprehensive non-monetary reward and recognition system.

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.

This issue of recognition is the second most important element behind defining expectations (employees understanding what their immediate boss expects of them). The goal is to drive higher levels of employee engagement (translated into productivity). Most stuides show 50-70% of your workforce is not engaged - primarlily around not defining expectations and not providing enough recognition.

As I have been teaching in my Complimentary one hour Vistage Workshops on Managing Remotely in a Crisis - this is a horrible method to manage performance. It's micro-management and "big brother" looking over your shoulder. It basically says we don't trust you. It's the easy way of out defining real performance mangagement like outcomes, deliverables, expecations, metrics, and KPIs. STOP using monitoring software. It creates a culture of mistrust.