Retain Top Talent

Some basic fundamental ideas on virtual on-boarding. Most companies approach to effective on-boarding is either non-existent or completely ineffective. Hiring people in a virtual world just amplifies the need to do a better job of making people believe this is the most important decision they've made to join your organization.

I've researched the idea of mental toughness extensively and teach it as my primary tool for success in coaching High School Girls Basketball. What is mental toughess (or what's now referred to as "Grit")?

It's character traits that enable success - like a positive attitude, a winner's mentality, proactivity, intiaitive, self-motivation, resilience, ability to overcome adversity, ability to accept constructive criticism/feedback and strive to continually improve (as Covey called it - sharpening the sword).

I recommend my clients dig into these character issues in every interview at every level. Here's an article on resilience I thought was interesting, especially this quote:

"40% of global respondents reported low levels of personal resilience and were at risk of ‘occupational burnout"

How do you build mental toughness/grit among your teams, especially since it's one of the core elements of high-performing teams.

Here from Forbes some key points reinforcing those I've been making in my Vistage Managing Remotely in a Crisis workshop on Zoom: set expectations and manage them, do face to face meetings on video, over communicate, create a communications plan and stick to it,

How well is your leadership doing leading across these elements?

I keep seeing articles showing a trend for companies to be monitoring how much and where employees are spending their time - NSA type monitoring.

Something doesn't seem right about these attempts? I've always been a big proponent of not measuring screen time, but rather setting mutually agreeable outcomes, deliverables, metrics, and KPIs.

The problem is when managers don't want to invest the time to define success, then we are left with the fallback position of measuring hours and screen time.

What's going on in your organization?

Some good action steps for improving employee engagement and higher levels of impact/productivity.

Note on Facebook's shift to remote working:

"The impact of the coronavirus has caused Facebook to reassess its requirement for employees to work out of an office"

Have you gone through a similar analysis of who really needs to be in the office full-time or part-time?

I've been suggesting this idea in the last 8 weeks of doing my Managing Remotely in a Crisis zoom webinar - send everyone company swag. This article reinforces that idea - and breaks down some different recommendations. The big question is whether swag is an effective reinforcement of positive experiences when folks are separated and isolated from being together?

Some interesting statistics on retention and engagement in this article.

"55% of workers say annual reviews don’t improve their performance. Employees would rather – and expect – to have a continuous level of engagement and feedback from their managers on how they are doing in their role."

Almost half of your employees want a different approach to feedback on their performance than the traditional sadistic approach of doing an annual performance review.

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?

Good reminders on the basics of effective performance management. Notice number one on the list is map out expectations.

This is the central theme of our consulting, workshops, and executive search practice - define success. NOT defining success is the number one reason for hiring failure, ineffective performance management, and poor employee engagement (and subsequently employee productivity).

Most studies show that at best 50 percent of your workforce knows what their immediate boss expects of them. In entrepreneurial and small businesses, that number is more likely to be in the 80 percent range of employees, candidates, new hires not understanding what's expected of them.

Huge problem in most companies. How are you fixing it?

Great set of statistics reminding us of the value of creating a sense of belonging, community, and matterness. What specific intiatives is your organization moving forward with to stimulate this level of employee engagement around relationships?

People might come to you because of your rep, salary, location, job opportunity - but they'll leave for a lack of relationships - boss, peers, teams.

Most companies invest ZERO time in stimulating the relationships among co-workers, and creating a sense of community and shared purpose. If we don't work on these elements, how can we ever hope to build high performing teams?

The part of expressing caring, interest, sensitivity, support, and empathy goes down the tubes when we feel isolated, lonely, and separated from our boss, organization, and co-workers.

As I've been reminding everyone in our Managing Remotely in a Crisis Workshop:

"Instead of jumping right to agenda item no 1 (or as soon as Harold finally located his unmute button) we should take 5 min. to ask how people are. Or take a virtual lunch or coffee break without any other purpose, than sharing how we are feeling on, what feels like day 913 of working in the same pants"

How much of this dialogue is happening in your organization - or is it only about the numbers and the metrics in conversations?

Some really good ideas from Forbes on hiring A-players. How many of these 14 strategies are you executing on now? Which one is at the top of your list to develop action plans for execution?

Some ideas/thoughts for boosting motivation by your employees working from home and suffering burn-out, zoom fatigue, isolation, separation, and the stress of balancing childcare, home life, and work expectations. My concern is that most companies are not spending enough time thinking about these issues, their cultural implications, and the resulting low levels of productivity based on employee disengagement.

Something to think about - your working parents - whether they will continue to work from home or come into the office now that restrictions are being eliminated.

Are you setting your organization up as a great place to work because of your sensitivity, empathy, caring toward family issues, and parents struggling with at-home issues?

The great part of working for an entrepreneurial company is the flexibility and family style atmosphere  - is that really the case in your actions as we cycle through this Crisis? 

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?