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The Employee Engagement Game: Will you Win or Lose?
Introduction
Take a few guesses: What do you think will help you as a manager or executive retain talent when the economy improves?
Let's look at some research facts to find out what employees are saying and then let's discuss what you can do about it in your organization.
Analysis
Here are the results from a Salary.com survey that asked what was important for job satisfaction:
- Good Relationships with Co-Workers
- Job Security
- Desirable Commute and Desirable Hours (flexibility)
The Society for Human Resource Management survey tells us that employees value:
- Professional Development Opportunities
- Relationship with Manager
- Flexibility
http://www.shrm.org/Research/SurveyFindings/Articles/Documents/09-0282_Emp_Job_Sat_Survey_FINAL.pdf
Randstad reports these three factors are essential for employee engagement:
- Trust – by both managers and co-workers
- Flexibility
- Support with career growth and the desire to grow with the company
Have you discerned the pattern? It is certainly a challenge during an economic downturn to invest in employees. But unless you do, you may loose them as soon as the job market loosens up. Here's interesting data:
Approximately 65% of employees admitted to passively or actively looking for a new job, compared to employers' estimate of 37%. Employers overestimate the degree of extremely satisfied employees nearly 2 to 1. Furthermore, this research found that Millennials report the lowest job satisfaction scores. Can you afford to lose your young talent?
Conclusion
Were your guesses on target? What do you do to retain talent and increase employee engagement?
The situation is not bleak. There is hope.
• Conduct leadership training and leadership coaching to increase the capacity of your managers so they support their staff more effectively. The capability of your leaders is the primary link to employee engagement. Employee engagement is the key factor to achieving your business results. Hold leaders accountable for increasing employee engagement.
• Ask your employees what is important to them. Conduct Employee Climate Surveys. Follow-up and address the issues that are raised in the survey results. At a minimum explain why you may not be able to make the requested changes. Engage in two-way communication. Conduct open forums or focus groups as a follow-up to the survey. Ensure that there is a safe climate to support candor so employees do not feel they will be retaliated against if they are honest.
• Engage in team building opportunities. This does not have to be trust falls and rope courses. Make time to engage staff in problem solving difficult business challenges. Help your team learn more about the personal work preferences of each team member so they can work more effectively together. If you have a virtual team, you can still engage in activities to increase trust and collaboration? Don't wait until the budget might allow for a face-to-face meeting. Learn how to build cohesive, high performing virtual teams.
Remember, if you lose valuable talent the consequence are costly:
- It costs between 150%-200% of a person's salary to replace an employee. This includes the cost of recruiting, the loss of productivity if the job is vacant as well as the learning curve time for a new employee to become optimally productive.
- Institutional knowledge walks out the door.
- The manager and team all spend time away from productive work to integrate the new employee.
- If a respected employee leaves, it may cause others to consider leaving as well. The brain drain may begin.
Events
- Marketing Thought Leaders: A Conversation with Julia Fajgenbaum May 25 @ 11 am PT
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2 Comments
I think the points made here boil down to one thing: it's about the employees. Many companies who take an "employees come first" approach to their business models seem to have a lot of success. This just proves how vital employee engagement is to the overall success of an organization.
I continue to read posts like this, well thought out, but always pointing in the same direction. If you don't do this, this is what's going to happen. I've read this same article every year for the last 20 years, very little has changed, if anything, I believe that it's gotten progressively worse.
Let's look at the numbers differently. First of all 65% may be looking but where do they think they are going to go. Secondly, what percentage of that 65% is worthwhile keeping, it may work to the employers advantage to have them look, they can weed themselves out. The other comment I would challenge is the notion of how much talent is going to flee. It's my opinion that the size of the talent pool is much smaller than most would admit to, it's the more prevailing issue in this country.
Barbara, I agree with every point you made, your on the money. Here's the problem, the change has to start with leaders and the organizational culture, it's my opinion that most organizations aren't willing to change their culture, that's become very apparent. I've seen so many individuals present these same types of facts to their leadership team and the reaction was basically, who cares, we are fine, everything is ok, we've done well doing business this way for years....blah, blah, blah, blah.
This is very much a corporate america paradox:
My employees need to be engaged
Employee engagement will improve our business
I like the way we do business now, it works
I think and don't know, but the answer to these issues may not be in providing the answer but better understanding the question, why do you ignore the facts.
Thanks for your submission.
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