Subscribe to my feedPosted by Jaylyn Schumpert on Mon, May 07, 2012
Do you know what is important to your prospective and current employees? Do you work hard to meet those needs? If you answered yes to both questions, then you probably have a low employee turnover rate. However, this is not the case for all employers and many companies struggle with the issue of employee turnover.
The average employee tenure at a company is approximately 4 years. This is barely enough, or not enough, time for a company to fully recoup hiring and training costs. Companies cannot eliminate turnover; however, there are some items to consider when trying to retain quality people.
The following are 6 steps that an employer can take to attract and retain top talent:
1) Evaluate Your Managers
Measure employee turnover by manager; this pinpoints the real problem. Poor managers cancel out all the good things that employers do to attract and retain the right people. Once the problem managers have been identified, help them! Use assessments or other tools to discover what these managers are doing to drive employees away and then provide training to develop them into better leaders. Good management is crucial to employee retention.
2) Create a Recognition Culture
Give your managers the responsibility for seeking out ways that employees go above and beyond. Create awards for excellent performance; this gives everyone an opportunity to be in the spotlight for doing a good job. Great examples of employee recognition include: thank you notes, employee of the month awards, newsletter recognition, service awards, etc. Positive recognition will lead to a more productive work environment.
3) Create a Healthy Work Environment
Create an environment where positive recognition seems normal. In order to achieve this there must be open communication, an attitude of cooperation, and an atmosphere of trust. Communicate with your employees; let them know where the company is going, how it plans to get there, how their jobs play a part in the grand scheme of things, and why they are the key to your success. Look for ways to show that you are willing to meet them halfway in balancing their personal and professional lives- flexible hours, childcare facilities, birthday leave, etc. Last, but definitely not least, trust your employees. If you want people to trust you, then you have to trust them. Give people a good reputation to live up to and they won’t let you down.
4) Create an Atmosphere of Continual Self-Improvement
Today’s job candidates want the opportunity to develop themselves and to continually polish their skills, abilities, and experience. Invest heavily in training and employee development and encourage employees to take advantage of the programs offered. Give everyone access to training that will enhance their self-esteem, their value, and their skills. Prove to your employees that there is no reason to leave when they can receive training and development from within the organization.
5) Put Your Best Foot Forward
This next statement may definitely throw some employers for a loop; pay employees as much salary and provide as many benefits as you can afford from day one. The goal is to reduce turnover and retain the right people, so if you scale back the initial offer by 15%, will the savings be enough to retain the employee when another company offers more money? Probably not. Put your best foot forward from the start and let everyone know that you are paying as much as you can afford for each position. As a person moves up the ladder, their pay should be adjusted accordingly. Know what each job is worth, and pay it early.
6) Match People to Jobs
Ensure people are matched to their jobs in terms of their abilities, interests, and personalities. When people are placed in positions where job demand and abilities match, where job stimulation and interest match, and where cultural demands and personalities match, turnover decreases and productivity increases. Employers can use assessments to determine the requirements of each position in terms of abilities, interests, and personalities and then use the information to match people to jobs where they will excel.
In most cases we want the quick, easy, and inexpensive fix, but unfortunately that is not always possible. Attracting and retaining the highest quality people may take time, effort, and money. By applying the 6 steps from above, companies can eliminate a large percentage of why people leave and keep the people that are essential to their success.
from the book BRILLIANT MISTAKES | Paul J. H. Schoemaker, excerpted in Inc Magazine Mar 20, 2012
You’re the boss, but you still spend too much time on the day-to-day.
Here’s how to become the strategic leader your company needs.
In the beginning, there was just you and your partners. You did every job. You coded, you met with investors, you emptied the trash and phoned in the midnight pizza. Now you have others to do all that and it’s time for you to “be strategic.”
Whatever that means.
If you find yourself resisting “being strategic,” because it sounds like a fast track to irrelevance, or vaguely like an excuse to slack off, you’re not alone. Every leader’s temptation is to deal with what’s directly in front, because it always seems more urgent and concrete. Unfortunately, if you do that, you put your company at risk. While you concentrate on steering around potholes, you’ll miss windfall opportunities, not to mention any signals that the road you’re on is leading off a cliff.
This is a tough job, make no mistake. “We need strategic leaders!” is a pretty constant refrain at every company, large and small. One reason the job is so tough: no one really understands what it entails. It’s hard to be a strategic leader if you don’t know what strategic leaders are supposed to do.
After two decades of advising organizations large and small, my colleagues and I have formed a clear idea of what’s required of you in this role. Adaptive strategic leaders — the kind who thrive in today’s uncertain environment – do six things well:
Anticipate
Most of the focus at most companies is on what’s directly ahead. The leaders lack “peripheral vision.” This can leave your company vulnerable to rivals who detect and act on ambiguous signals. To anticipate well, you must:
- Look for game-changing information at the periphery of your industry
- Search beyond the current boundaries of your business
- Build wide external networks to help you scan the horizon better
Think Critically
“Conventional wisdom” opens you to fewer raised eyebrows and second guessing. But if you swallow every management fad, herdlike belief, and safe opinion at face value, your company loses all competitive advantage. Critical thinkers question everything. To master this skill you must force yourself to:
- Reframe problems to get to the bottom of things, in terms of root causes
- Challenge current beliefs and mindsets, including your own
- Uncover hypocrisy, manipulation, and bias in organizational decisions
Interpret
Ambiguity is unsettling. Faced with it, the temptation is to reach for a fast (and potentially wrongheaded) solution. A good strategic leader holds steady, synthesizing information from many sources before developing a viewpoint. To get good at this, you have to:
- Seek patterns in multiple sources of data
- Encourage others to do the same
- Question prevailing assumptions and test multiple hypotheses simultaneously
Decide
Many leaders fall prey to “analysis paralysis.” You have to develop processes and enforce them, so that you arrive at a “good enough” position. To do that well, you have to:
- Carefully frame the decision to get to the crux of the matter
- Balance speed, rigor, quality and agility. Leave perfection to higher powers
- Take a stand even with incomplete information and amid diverse views
Align
Total consensus is rare. A strategic leader must foster open dialogue, build trust and engage key stakeholders, especially when views diverge. To pull that off, you need to:
- Understand what drives other people’s agendas, including what remains hidden
- Bring tough issues to the surface, even when it’s uncomfortable
- Assess risk tolerance and follow through to build the necessary support
Learn
As your company grows, honest feedback is harder and harder to come by. You have to do what you can to keep it coming. This is crucial because success and failure–especially failure–are valuable sources of organizational learning. Here’s what you need to do:
- Encourage and exemplify honest, rigorous debriefs to extract lessons
- Shift course quickly if you realize you’re off track
- Celebrate both success and (well-intentioned) failures that provide insight
Do you have what it takes?
Obviously, this is a daunting list of tasks, and frankly, no one is born a black belt in all these different skills. But they can be taught and whatever gaps exist in your skill set can be filled in. You can begin by getting feedback from your peers and direct reports. Be willing to listen to their perceptions and assuming they have your best interest at heart, acknowledge their input and take the necessary action to improve your strategic thinking.
Top 10 Reasons Boiled Down to 1
Erika Anderson, a contributor at Forbes writes about Eric Jackson, a fellow blogger that she follows and finds both funny and astute. Eric wrote a really spot-on post last month about why top talent leaves large (and small) corporations. He offered ten reasons, all of which I agreed with – and all of which I’ve seen played out again and again, over the course of 25 years of coaching and consulting. The post was wildly popular – over 1.5 million views at this writing.
So why do we find this topic so interesting? I suspect it’s because we’re genuinely curious: What would make a very senior executive – someone who most certainly has been courted by his or her organization and then paid huge sums of money to join – decide to pack it in? Is it greed (an even richer offer down the street)? Hubris? Short attention span? Or do 1%ers actually leave jobs for the same reasons as the average Joe or Josie?
According to Jackson (and, again, I agree with him) top talent does indeed leave for the same reasons everyone else does. If I were to distill his ‘top ten reasons’ down to one, it’s this:
Top talent leave an organization when they’re badly managed and the organization is confusing and uninspiring.
About half of Eric’s ten reasons are about poor people management – either systemically, as in poor performance feedback, or individually, as in, my boss sucks. And the other half are about organizational lameness: shifting priorities, no vision, close-mindedness.
It really is that simple. Not easy, mind you, but remarkably simple. If you want to keep your best people:
1) Create an organization where those who manage others are hired for their ability to manage well, supported to get even better at managing, and held accountable and rewarded for doing so.
2) Then be clear about what you’re trying to accomplish as an organization – not only in terms of financial goals, but in a more three-dimensional way. What’s your purpose; what do you aspire to bring to the world? What kind of a culture do you want to create in order to do that? What will the organization look, feel and sound like if you’re embodying that mission and culture? How will you measure success? And then, once you’ve clarified your hoped-for future, consistently focus on keeping that vision top of mind and working together to achieve it.
I’ve worked with client organizations that do those two things, and people stay and thrive. I’ve worked with and observed client organizations that don’t – and it’s a revolving door. And that’s true at all levels – not just for “top talent.”
It’s fascinating to me: Why don’t more CEOs and their teams make sure these two things happen in their organizations? What do you think?
The 7 Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives 
Eric Jackson Contributor
article.
It paints a vivid picture and makes you wonder which animal your staff resembles more.ever changing. The types of people you hire, develop, and promote should
represent different skill sets, backgrounds, and levels of expertise in order to
fulfill the various roles that make up a company.
people in the right roles:
- Tigers are aggressive and focused on their goal. They are predators and don’t hesitate to target, stalk, and attack their prey. They are lean and muscular, not bulky or clumsy. They are territorial yet also sociable.
- Deer are more placid, timid, and easily spooked. They are typically
non-threatening, although they can do serious damage if you run into one, or if they stumble into an unfamiliar environment. However, be careful not to prejudge this group too quickly, for the antlers on large bucks are reminders of their experience, wisdom, and grandeur.
stirring theme song by Survivor from Rocky III. (Guess I’m showing my
age there.) Central to the plot of that movie was a former adversary helping
Rocky to rekindle the fire inside, find his aggression, and the will to fight.
To do that, he needed the eye of the tiger. If you can look past the wardrobe
from the post-disco era, the message is very timeless and relevant to managing
talent.
found across all functions throughout an organization. These people are
generally forward thinking and extremely achievement-oriented. While they will certainly help you reach your targets, they can also be difficult to rein in at times and control. Unless yours is a sales organization, you’d likely not want an organization made up exclusively of tigers – they administrative tasks and mundane work would likely suffer.
makes you worry that the person doesn’t know what they’re doing or aren’t up to the task. Try to assess whether they need extra coaching, training, or mentoring to do the job. If the goal was a stretch, then this could be a reasonable learning experience. But if you’ve hired someone you thought was a good candidate, only to find they’re not as qualified as the interview process led you to believe, then this is a good case for using assessments
to improve the likelihood of success of your new hires. The same could be said of promotions and other job moves.
Tiger
effect as well as resolve it:
- Skill Level: Does the person possess the right technical skills,
experience, and critical thinking to be able to perform the job successfully?
Can they be trained to learn, or are they so far over their head that finding them a new role (or firing them) is the better option? - Job Fit: Did you take a successful individual performer and move them prematurely into a managerial or supervisory role? Is the person talented, but outside their level of capability?
- Communication: Message sent does not equal message received. How clearly was the assignment communicated and explained? Is this a new task in which all are finding their way, or are there examples to reference or incumbents to consult for getting back on track?
- Manager Effectiveness: When you see your employees struggling, don’t be quick to blame them. Consider how effectively you have assigned tasks (are their gaps or overlaps among employees?), communicated the job (what might sound
simple to you might not be to them) and how it fits in with the objectives of the department and company. Have you issued conflicting directives?
other non-work-related issues that have caused them to lose focus. This is where an open culture of dialogue can greatly benefit both the employee and
organization. Try talking to the person in a non-threatening way to determine the root of the problem and see if can be easily corrected. If the problem persists, document the steps you’ve taken and set performance goals to be met or used as grounds for dismissal.
Management Tip: See Yourself Through the Eyes of Your Employees
If a stranger asks you to rank your management team on a scale of one to ten in areas such as communication, delegation, etc, what would you say? Most people would rank them unrealistically high for fear that their answers would get back to their boss. How many of you can say that you would answer 100 percent truthfully in your own opinion? 
Despite all the trainings and coaching that management personnel can put employees through, a true manager also knows that they themselves are not perfect and they can always improve their management skills. Most of us work with a variety of people, and all people require different levels and amounts of coaching and mentoring from their superiors.
Everybody cares about what others think of them, it’s human nature. But what if you could find out exactly how you were perceived as a manager in your organization? Think how you could use that information to motivate and engage your employees better.
Feedback programs can be a sensitive subject for all parties involved because of fear. Managers fear they are not doing a sufficient job and employees fear if they are honest, they will get in trouble for any negative feedback toward their manager.
As a manager, you may think you are an outstanding communicator, but how do you rank in the eyes of the people in which you are communicating? How are you perceived as a manager?
The Checkpoint360™ is a tool that looks at how a manager thinks he conducts work on a daily basis and how the employee perceives the work of this manager. Both parties (manager and employees) carry out the assessment and reports two important factors:
1. Strengths – The areas you and your employees consider you to have a strength. The ‘keep doing’ items.
2. Perception by others - This outlines the areas that you may not be as strong. This could be one of two things: A performance gap is when you may think you delegate work effectively on a day-to-day basis, however, your people may be unsatisfied with your method for doing so. It could also be a perception gap. You may be delegating work effectively each day, but employees perceive that you are not. With these types of results, depending on the issue, the Checkpoint360™ report will provide you with a positive direction on how to change that and raise your game.
Either way, once you know how your people are thinking, you can modify behavior, change the way you manage, work on your skills, and immediately raise your game as a superior manager. In the example of delegating work effectively, perhaps you need a weekly meeting where employees outline the work that was appointed to them so all employees can see how you are delegating the work load. The team will have a clear outline of what is required of them and possibly notice ways that they can help each other work more effectively.
The Checkpoint360™ is only focused on strengths and development areas, not weaknesses. It is not about attacking managers; it is about helping them develop skills by means of strength analysis report.
Equipping your organization with the Checkpoint360™ solution has numerous benefits, but one in particular is priceless and one that most managers will never have in their career: A view of yourself in a working environment through the eyes of the people you are trying to motivate that work for you!
By Kyle Lagunas, HR Analyst at Software Advice. Guest Post
Business leaders invest a lot in their organization, and expect to see a tangible return on their investments. But as organizations search for opportunities to maximize the ROI of their workforce, they one process is often overlooked: onboarding. Sadly, the onboarding experience is often reduced to little more than a checklist of tasks to be completed in the first week. But the fact that many leaders fail to leverage is that an employee that experiences a smoother onboarding process will be better trained, more connected to the organization and quicker to produce.
Your decision-makers need to know their resources are being put to good use, and with the right metrics at your disposal, you can deliver the information they’re looking for. After all, the key to making the case for future resource allocation lies in being able to illustrate the effectiveness of your onboarding process.
Establish a Baseline for Measuring Onboarding ROI
The biggest obstacle many HR departments struggle to overcome is establishing a baseline for how their organization will assess ROI. Fact: Evaluating the value of an enhanced HR process is not always a straightforward process. As such, spending time with leadership to establish a baseline for measuring ROI is invaluable.
There are a few key concepts to keep in mind when establishing your baseline to measure ROI:
- Onboarding should be consistent. All of your fancy data gathering will be for naught unless you can roll out a universal process for onboarding new hires.
- The onboarding process is more than a checklist. Though checklists are great for staying organized, your new hires’ success depends on your ability to get them connected to your organization and keep them connected beyond their first day.
- The onboarding process goes beyond the first week. Though the normal probationary period for new hires is 90 days, The Wynhurst Group reports 22 percent of staff turnover occurs in the first 45 days of employment.
How to Brave the Metrics Madness
After identifying what information will be most valuable, you can implement tracking strategies. Keep in mind that some of the data you measure won’t be cold, hard facts that fit nicely into a spreadsheet. That said, there are three areas you can focus on for information: performance, experience and effectiveness. Also, broaden your scope beyond your new hires to measure the impact at various levels (team, department, organization).
Here are a few ideas of what you can measure (as well as how frequently):
| Employee(30, 60, 90, 180, 360 days) | Team(Quarterly) | Organization(Semi-annually) | |
| Performance | Progress milestones | Change in overall productivity | Headcount vs. output |
| Experience | Employee satisfaction | Impact on team morale | Cultural fit vs. retention |
| Effectiveness | New hire time to proficiency | New hire time to proficiency vs. team average | Impact on retention (both quits and terminations) |
For Maximum ROI, Take Engagement Beyond Onboarding
The best metrics should be forward-thinking analytics tools. According to Dr. John Sullivan at TLNT.com, “They tell you who’s going to win the Superbowl next year, not who won last year.” Furthermore, they should provide the information you need to win the Superbowl every year.
At the end of the day, your ROI is answering one question above all: What is the value of onboarding new employees more effectively? Here’s a hint: Take a look at your metrics and note improvements in employee performance, time to proficiency and increased retention. Once you can answer that question, move onto the next question: “How can we maximize the value of a better-onboarded employee?”
One way you can maximize this value is to keep the momentum going. Many organizations leverage the tools and technology found in talent management systems to better manage the process of engaging and motivating their employees. Beyond core talent management functionality, these systems also offer reporting analytics and dashboard elements that provide the information you need to support your ROI analysis.
Employee engagement has become a business buzz term lately. Why are we hearing about it so much, and does it really matter? After all, you have selected and hired employees who bring not only the appropriate skills set, but also are able to work well with their team, right?
Here’s what author, Judith Bardwick, PhD says about employee engagement: “Gaining employee commitment results in greater profits because enthusiastic employees stay, contribute discretionary effort, and engage customers. Performance soars when customers are enthused and stay and when executives, managers, and employees are a collaborative team, united in achieving common goals.”
If we follow Dr. Bardwick’s lead, then the logical conclusion is that ignoring employee engagement leads to leaving profits on the table! Here is how you can shift focus and start to engage the workforce in your organization.
Engage First-Line Leaders
The impact of first line supervisors can’t be overstated. These employees are often an underutilized tool in spreading employee engagement through the ranks. Get these employees involved by developing their ability to lead (and therefore engage) team members. In recent years, the 360-degree assessment has taken the place of a more subjective one-on-one job review and also provides the foundation for their development. These assessments provide a balanced view of performance and build trust between management and staff.
Communicate
There is now doubt that an actively engaged workforce is the result of committed leaders. Engagement must be included in executive objectives. because engaging first-line leaders will follow only after executives have led the march. What can they do? Identify communication ambassadors within the company who can help transmit the company’s messages; supply engagement ambassadors with direct channels and information; and provide consistent information directly from the CEO that should be communicated with all employees.
Develop a Motivational Culture
While many leaders cringe at the thought of potential budget issues related to employee development, organizations can implement a few key employee development programs and assessments and gain maximum results by publicizing the efforts, consistently communicating regular updates about initiatives and changes that affect employees and providing opportunities for employees to be part of the their own development and engagement process.
The Takeaway: Engagement leads to profit and profit, wisely publicized and communicated, leads to to engagement.
Now that the economy is showing signs of recovery, the companies that cut back significantly on employee development during the economic downturn are scurrying to convince their top performers not to take flight.
Moreover, a recent study by the Society for Human Resource Management indicates that 67% of employers are increasing expectations of employee productivity in the next year. With these two forces at work, how can you hope to keep your emerging leaders from polishing up their resumes? Here are three ways to get started, compliments of the Harvard Business Review:
1) Give employees the opportunity to shine; let them succeed by highlighting their strengths.
2) Check in individually to find out how they are handling the daily challenges of their job.
3) Customize your communication and recognition according to the personality and strengths of the individual.
These introductory steps will help to stem the tide. Keep the inertia going by integrating a management skillbuilder into the workplace or giving emerging leaders the opportunity to find out about their own leadership traits with a 360 assessment. Begin this turnaround today to ensure that your organization is tiven the opportunity to retain and develop its most important asset.