Unemployment is at an all-time low. As a result, employers are focusing their attention on retaining their current employees. The
2019 G2 Crowd Employee Engagement Report revealed that 88% of HR departments consider employee engagement a strategic priority for their company.
One of the most effective means of retaining employees is by developing a strategic engagement plan.
Improving Employee Engagement
There is no simple solution to resolving the issue of a lack of employee engagement. Companies must make a concerted effort to investigate what is preventing their employees from being engaged, and then take steps to correct the issues.
To combat a shifting workforce, employers must address the common reasons employees give for leaving their job. Here are three common reasons:
Poor Management
Gallup polls revealed that 50% of employees left their jobs for reasons that directly related to their manager. Make the wrong choice in management, and it can adversely affect your employees. Make the correct choice and your organization can exceed expectations. Evaluate the leadership within your business to ensure that management prioritizes employees and supports the values of the company.
Lack of Communication The foundation for an engaged workforce is trust. One of the essential ways to develop trust is to open the doors of communication between employees and management. By prioritizing transparency, employees will feel a sense of loyalty and respect for their manager.
Minimal or a Lack of any Training Employees who feel unprepared to handle the responsibilities of their job are more likely to seek employment elsewhere. Offer employees a comprehensive onboarding program designed to equip the employee with the skills they will need to start in their new position. Follow it up with incremental trainings to address any facets of the job they may be lacking, or to provide cross-training in other areas. Take the training a step further by providing leadership training as appropriate.
The by-product of addressing why people leave is an increase in employee engagement. By solving the issues that create a disconnect between employees and management, employee engagement will naturally improve. To supercharge the engagement strategy, institute company-wide changes that are designed to affect positive results. Here are some ideas:
How to Improve Employee Engagement
Put Employees First Great managers know that their priority is their team. By taking care of their employees through training and empowerment, they create an environment where employees can take care of their customers. Offer employees the ability to further their skills through development programs and goal-setting.
Cultivate a Welcoming Workplace Companies are made up of individual employees. Management teams that recognize the importance of individuals will encourage creativity, value hard work and promote the development of teamwork. Prioritize the development of a workplace that is diverse and inclusive. Diversity is an increasing desire of employees.
67% of job candidates expressed that they were looking for employment with a company that had a diverse workforce.
Establish Good Communication Between Employees and Management
The highest levels of engagement are found when employees have frequent communication with their manager. A combination of phone, electronic and face to face communication is ideal. Employers who respond to employee inquiries within 24 hours are considered more responsive than their counterparts. Communication does not always have to be reserved to work topics. When an employer expresses an interest in the employee’s life outside of work, the employee is more likely to feel that they are valued for more than their work at the company.
Business leaders have a vested interest in improving the retention rates of their companies. The best way to encourage employees to stay? Create a workplace they won’t want to leave.
Michele Bailey is president and CEO of
Blazing Agency and
My Big Idea®. These two lines of business work congruently to support her clients’ success.
78% of HR leaders are more concerned about the talent shortage today than they were a year ago. Is there a talent crisis?
What has caused the crisis? Why are employers strategizing how to attract top talent to their organization?
Understanding the Talent Shortage
According to some experts, the “talent crisis” has been simmering for the last decade, reaching epic heights in the last year.
Unemployment numbers have been dropping – reaching historic lows in North America over the last few years.
Canadian numbers fell to an impressive low, reaching 5.6% in 2018, the lowest rate since 1976. Combined with the large number of baby boomers moving out of the workplace leaving a wide number of vacancies in their wake, this has created a talent (and employment) crisis. Throw in a declining birth rate and it is a human resources challenge, to put it nicely.
In contrast,
some claim that the crisis has little to do with talent and
much to do with hiring. In their view, human resource directors who have unrealistic expectations for job candidates, or who have narrowed job descriptions to the point would-be candidates are eliminated unnecessarily have created their own “talent crisis”.
In either case, the numbers don’t lie: there are a growing number of jobs going unfilled.
By some estimates, the talent crisis employers are facing now pales in comparison to the coming crisis. They predict that by 2030 the boomer generation will have moved completely out of the workplace and younger generations will not have had the training necessary to take over in high-skilled positions.
The push for highly technical skills will continue to drive demand, but dire predictions forecast a $162 billion loss of revenue in the United States alone as a result of unmet employment needs.
How Can Companies Prepare for the Shortage?
The savvy business manager will take a long-range approach to prepare for the needs of the company in the coming years.
Attracting Top Talent
With a smaller pool of candidates to choose from, HR managers are forced to take a hard look at their employment strategy and develop a plan to attract top talent. What brings top-level employees to an organization?
Where People Want to Work
Top-level talent attracts other top-level talent. By cultivating a workplace where people want to work, you’ll retain your current top-level employees and attract the attention of other top-talents. How?
Provide Autonomy High-level employees want the freedom to do their work. Encourage your employees to set goals, and then develop a plan to reach their targets. Give them the flexibility to meet their goals in the way that suits them best.
Promote Competency Allow employees to further their development within your organization. Give them the chance to become masters in their job. A comprehensive professional development program ensures that not only will your employees have the skills to do their job today, it can develop the skills they will need in the future.
Connection Opportunities One of the top reasons employees give for staying at a job is the connections they have with their coworkers. Give employees opportunity to connect and engage with other employees through events both during and after work hours. Create seating areas where employees can sit and talk, eat lunch together and socialize. Steve Jobs famously said:
“There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.” Steve Jobs
What does the future hold for the talent market? As unemployment numbers remain low and high-tech jobs continue to be created, the talent market will most likely remain tight. To prepare for this, business managers must adopt a new strategy and look beyond the current state of business.
To prepare your company, ask yourself these five questions:
What positions are the most difficult for us to fill?What skills are lacking in our new employees?What skills will employees need in upcoming years?Should we begin a training program to ensure our employees have the skills we’re going to need them to have?How can we structure our professional development program to establish a pool of internal talent to draw from?
Your organization will have an advantage over competitors by planning for upcoming talent needs and eliminating the need to look outside your company for needed talent.
Michele Bailey is president and CEO of
Blazing Agency and
My Big Idea®. These two lines of business work congruently to support her clients’ success.
It can cost up to 33% of an employee’s salary to fill a vacant position.
Employers who wish to avoid both the expense and the hassle of trying to replace valued employees understand that an “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
You may have an outstanding “employee package” with a competitive salary, solid benefit plan and generous vacation program, but those mainly work to attract good employees.
In most cases, those aren’t enough to keep good employees long-term. What’s the secret to retaining key employees in your company?
Acknowledge Your Employees Value Employees want to be recognized for their unique contributions to the organization. Show your employees that they are an asset to the company. Greet them by name. Recognize when they do a good job. (Be specific. “Nice work on the Harris project” is more powerful than “Good job”.) Thank them for working hard every day. Ask for their ideas and input into changes or improvements in the company. Help them use goal-setting to plan their work and allow them to make choices on how to accomplish their tasks whenever possible. By showing employees you value the work they do, you are building trust and loyalty – two of
the biggest reasons employees give for staying at their job.
Communicate Your Company Values Educate employees on the mission of the company, and how their role assists in reaching the business’ goals. Assist employees in setting goals to reach their own targets. Provide employees with a clear job description to ensure that they understand their duties and communicate any changes or updates that may be needed. Do not hesitate to repeat, repeat, repeat your company values – you’d be surprised how many of your employees may not be sure what the company values are. This is not their fault, it is yours as a leader. Seek to change that.
Provide Growth Opportunities In many cases valued employees will seek employment elsewhere when they feel there is nowhere for them to progress within the organization. Make sure employees know the path forward within your company. Offer professional and personal development opportunities regularly. Think outside the box – ask your employees which programs may be of special interest to them that could help them do their work better. Keep your employees informed of future plans for their growth within your business and develop a systematic plan together to help them achieve success.
Promote a Team Feeling Help employees see themselves as part of a larger group by encouraging teamwork whenever possible.
A recent survey indicated that nearly half of North American employees polled listed a good relationship with their co-workers at the top of the reasons for staying at their current job. Cultivate this by establishing places where team members can eat together, seating areas where employees can congregate on breaks and naturally talk about which project their working on. If you run a remote team, you may want to bring them all together at a co-working space once a month, or gather globally remote teams on a catch-up Zoom call once a month. But, it’s got to work for your culture, take these ideas as a starting point.
Provide Financial Incentive While salary may not be the primary reason employees give for staying in their job, it is a factor in why they may leave. Regularly compare your pay structure with similar businesses to ensure that your company is competitive in pay. Offer bonuses and other financial incentives for work that is above and beyond their normal duties, or for outstanding performances.
Tired of the revolving door of employees and the financial drain it causes for your business? Invest both time and money into retaining your valued employees by implementing a
strategic plan of retention.
In addition, evaluate your own role in retaining employees. Does the way you interact with employees express your appreciation for their performance? Do employees value your input and feel as though they can come to you with issues and problems they may be facing (both in and out of work)?
Half of polled employees revealed that a good relationship with their manager is a factor in staying at a job – even if they are not happy with their salary. What changes can you make to ensure that your employees have a clear picture of their importance to the company?
Michele Bailey is president and CEO of
Blazing Agency and
My Big Idea®. These two lines of business work congruently to support her clients’ success.
With the escalating costs of employee turnover, business executives are seeking ways to improve employee retention and increase employee engagement.
What can employers do to retain valuable employees? According to one study, employees with a high confidence level in their company’s senior leadership are 5 times more likely to remain with their employer more than 2 years.
How do companies promote confidence in the senior leadership team?
Be interested in employees. Employees want to be recognized and valued for their individuality. Inherently, employees know they are there to perform a job, but today’s workers also want to make a difference. Demonstrate that you see them as more than just a robot at a desk and that you recognize their
importance to the company. Ask questions about their career goals, their future plans, their life outside of work. Be genuinely interested in the people who work in the company.
Communicate the company’s vision and goals. Employees want to know their work matters. By communicating the company’s goals and vision, they can see how their job fits into the larger picture. Employee confidence grows when there is a clear path for future corporate growth. Identify ways the employee can help the company achieve success and tie their job into the overall corporate goals.Provide regular updates.Corporate development should be part of an ongoing conversation with employees. Discuss the company’s progress towards organizational goals and share both successes and failures. While employees don’t need to be part of every decision, including employees in key decision-making processes can help build confidence in the management team. By sharing the behind the scenes process with employees, they begin to see themselves as a part of a larger process.Establish comprehensive job training. Professional development is important. Offering employees regular training on job skills, cross-training within departments and other development programs indicates that the organization is invested in the success of its employees.Recognize employee success.Demonstrate appreciation for employee success. Whether publicly or privately, showing that you notice an employee’s hard work will help employees feel confident their work does not go unseen and is important to the company’s success.Listen effectively. Business managers develop trust by asking effective questions and listening to the answers. Go beyond surface-level conversations about employee ideas and suggestions, and then take action when appropriate.Be a leader with integrity. Nothing builds confidence faster than being a person of your word. Letting employees see that you are leading with the values of the company, and that you do what you say you’ll do. Demonstrate trust in your employees and be worthy of their trust.
Developing employee confidence in senior management is an on-going process. It is established through the daily interactions management level staff have with the employees and is part of the organization’s culture.
By working to develop employee confidence, you are improving employee engagement and directly impacting the voluntary turnover rate by creating a place people want to work.
Where can you improve in developing your employees’ confidence?
Michele Bailey is president and CEO of
Blazing Agency and
My Big Idea®. These two lines of business work congruently to support her clients’ success.
Maintaining a productive and effective workforce is one of the biggest challenges business owners and leaders will face in the coming years.
Low unemployment rates and a widening skills gap is creating an environment where it is harder to find (and keep) valuable employees. The competition for employee retention is fierce, in part due to the high cost of employee turnover.
Replacing employees is costly. Estimates vary with the exact price tag that goes along with replacing employees, but some
companies report that it can be as high as 200% of the departing employee’s salary. In addition to the direct costs (advertising, vetting prospective employees, training programs), indirect expenses can have an impact on a company’s bottom line as well.
The loss of productivity, overtime for employees picking up the slack and other unforeseen costs can add up quickly.
With the increasing number of options available to employees, employers who wish to establish a cohesive workforce must act.
What are the top reasons given for employee turnover? • Career development • Work-life balance • Behaviour of management • Compensation/benefits packages • Personal well-being • Job responsibilities • Workplace environment
Other reasons given include retirement, relocation and involuntary turnover. Savvy business managers will realize that addressing the preventable reasons employees cite for leaving can help increase employee engagement and prevent voluntary turnover.
Employers can take steps to address issues within their organization that may be causing employees to leave. By developing a comprehensive plan to retain employees, business managers can create an environment where employees want to stay.
How can you prevent voluntary employee turnover?
Conduct exit interviews. The quickest way to find out what’s causing employee turnover in your company is to ask. Use open-ended questions to find out why employees are leaving. Look for underlying reasons that may be a factor as well. Hire carefully. Successful recruitment is an essential part of preventing turnover. When the right employees are hired for the right job, they are more likely to become engaged and vested in their position.
Use on-boarding effectively. Create a strategic on-boarding program that helps new employees assimilate into the culture and responsibilities of their new job .
Assess your compensation package. Do you pay a fair wage? Are your employees happy with the benefits they receive? Ensure that your company is competitive with similar businesses. Evaluate management behaviour. Does your management team promote the company’s core values? Do they communicate to employees the attitudes and behaviors you want? Are your employees valued for their individual personalities and skills?
As the job market becomes more and more competitive, employers must take steps to cultivate a workplace where voluntary turnovers are the exception, not the norm. Reducing the reasons employees would look elsewhere is a powerful step towards improving employee engagement and improving corporate success. How are you encouraging your employees to stay?
Michele Bailey is president and CEO of
Blazing Agency and
My Big Idea®. These two lines of business work congruently to support her clients’ success.
With some of the lowest unemployment rates seen in decades, the current employment market is a job seeker’s paradise.
How Did We Get Here? During the early 2000’s, employees began to realize that they needed to be flexible in order to accommodate a shifting job market. Established companies that had been around for “eons” began to downsize.
Company retirement accounts disappeared. A general distrust of employers began to erode what was once considered a given: you find a company you like and build a career there. Out of necessity, employees began sharpening their skills to make themselves more attractive to prospective companies, and employers began to scramble as they realized they were losing valuable people.
Employees were encouraged to change jobs frequently, with many experts advising that job stints shouldn’t
last longer than 3 years. From this era, the idea of employee engagement emerged in an effort to stem the rising tide of job hopping and improve the quality of employees within a company.
As the result
of decades of research, business experts have amassed an impressive amount of information regarding the state of employee satisfaction. Known as employee engagement, it is a quantifier that demonstrates the level of employee commitment to their employer and the company’s goals and vision.
According to this research, nearly 75% of Canadian employees are disengaged at work. 15% of employees are actively disengaged, meaning they are blatantly working against the company’s goals, while the remaining 60% are merely unengaged. They show up for work but have no enthusiasm for self-improvement or helping the company achieve success.
The lack of employee engagement, along with the growing number of employees who are constantly looking for their next job stepping stone, can create a sense of unease for business managers who are struggling to build a cohesive team. In fact, a recent survey indicates that 56% of workers are planning to look for a new job within the next 6 months.
What can employers do to combat this issue?
Invest in employee growth. Most employees want to grow professionally and personally. Investing in training programs that have long-term benefits for the employee can improve employee engagement and demonstrate to employees that you are interested in their continued growth.
Think outside the box – not all training has to be business related, some can be fun. Are your employees into line dancing? Bring in dance instructors and offer a series of line dancing classes during lunch. Do you have employees interested in coding? Offer on-site classes in coding after work. How can you invest in your employees that are “whole self” focused instead of just on-the-job training?
Make employee well-being a priority. Wellness programs, flexible scheduling and other benefits can all be factors in cultivating loyalty from your employees. When employees feel as though they are valued as individuals, they are more likely to stay in their current position.
Zappos has taken a different approach to preventing employee loss. If you haven’t heard about their unique methods, they instituted a “Pay to Quit” program for new employees who were going through their training program. At the midpoint of their onboarding, employees would be offered $4000 if they felt as though Zappos was not the right job for them.
Zappos’ management explains that they only wanted people who were fully invested in the success and growth of the company. They calculated the amount of money they would spend to train and replace employees and determined it was cheaper to “buy out” employees who weren’t going to make the cut.
Since Zappos was acquired by Amazon, the program has evolved and is now offered yearly to employees as part of their annual evaluations.
The offer is made through a memo entitled, “Please Don’t Take This Offer”. According to management, they rarely have to pay and employees consistently rate Amazon and Zappos with high marks.
You may not be in a position to pay employees for leaving, but can you institute a process where employees are encouraged to evaluate why they took the job at your company?
Michele Bailey is president and CEO of
Blazing Agency and
My Big Idea®. These two lines of business work congruently to support her clients’ success.
