The art and science of retaining key talent post-pandemic
Organizations that rest on their laurels may be in for a rude awakening when it comes to talent.
“I quit.”
Those two little words can cause heartburn for employers, especially when uttered by someone the organization depends on for its continued success. In an almost post-pandemic economy that heavily favors job seekers, some employees are finding it easy to abandon their current organization for what they hope will be a brighter future elsewhere.
Related: Money can’t buy happiness: What top talent cares about more than salary
The good news is that, even in the midst of this so-called “Great Resignation,” organizations can take proactive steps to retain their key talent.
Pay attention
Keeping a current pulse on key talent is a business imperative for employers hoping to retain their best talent. Organizations that rest on their laurels may be in for a rude awakening when it comes to talent.
Here are some strategies to consider:
Hearing isn’t enough; you’ve got to listen. Leading organizations understand the quantitative and qualitative value of transparent communications where leaders and managers not only speak to talent, but are also trained to openly listen and learn from people at all levels of the organization. Building and supporting processes that allow employees to share honest feedback can help an organization identify trends, gaps and opportunities. This approach can also unearth talent concerns before they negatively affect employee retention.
Conduct workforce analytics. Data is king and employers are less susceptible to attrition when they keep a close eye on their workforce metrics. The key here is to look for patterns by regularly slicing and dicing multiple workforce populations such as by years of service, geography, pay scale, role or job family, manager, department and attrition cause.
Do you know where your people are? The “watercooler” has been replaced by remote digital water bottles. Employees are speaking to each other about their jobs and employer in an exponentially growing number of outlets, mostly digital. In addition to being a source of valuable intellectual capital, employers should know where their people exchange ideas.
“Employee engagement” is plural. Much like most information consumption, people engage with their employer in a variety of ways. Employers with thoughtful and deliberate internal communication strategies understand that they should use multiple distribution channels and make sure that communication isn’t just in one direction.
Stay interviews are a thing. Some employers conduct “stay interviews” to help learn why employees stay in their jobs. This may feel trite, but this information is vital data that helps confirm the organization’s employee value proposition (EVP). And it is a chance to collect data from loyal employees about what makes their job harder than it should be and help identify gaps they hear from other colleagues.
Do you know where your alumni are? Staying connected to former employees can be an important source of information. Alumni may also stay connected to their former colleagues who are still current employees and could help identify people at-risk or other discontent.
The early bird keeps the worm
When organizations discover specific problems that are driving employees away, they have a chance to appropriately address them — but only if they act quickly. Making the at-risk employees feel valued before the situation deteriorates is key to retention.
While the tired expression “People don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses” oversimplifies the challenge of employee retention, the organization should make sure at-risk employees receive robust support from managers trained at managing. Having a manager express a genuine interest in the employee’s progress and career development with regular feedback loops and mentoring can go a long way toward keeping that employee in the organization, even if other aspects of the job remain less than ideal.
Why are you a great place to work?
If each employee can’t answer that question with ease, then you may want to consider revisiting your EVP and reconsider how it is communicated. While drafted for the entire organization, great EVPs are also the pillars of each individual’s purpose in your organization. Your EVP should be relevant and valuable to the very people who will propel your organization.
Managers should be trained on how to use the organization’s EVP as they develop each employee’s goals and career development path. Knowing what matters to each person and managing to those priorities is a powerful way to personalize their job journey.
Total rewards are totally important
While a thoughtful EVP includes more than competitive compensation and benefits, there is a reason why shortcomings in total rewards continue to be one of the top three reasons people leave their jobs. Great total rewards are the most obvious way employers demonstrate that they care about their people, shifting the relationship from a transaction (labor for a paycheck) to a model that employees can’t easily abandon.
Here are some questions to help determine if your total rewards are helping or hurting your retention efforts:
Did you listen? Are your total rewards designed to reflect your peoples’ current needs and priorities? Do your total rewards attract the type of talent you need to propel your organization post-pandemic? Odds are, if you haven’t revisited your compensation and benefit programs in more than five years (other than for legally required changes or in reaction to COVID-19), your total rewards need a facelift.
Are you competitive? A competitive assessment will help your enterprise understand the explicit and implicit total rewards and EVPs being offered by the market. This will help you craft a compelling and differentiating strategy and design.
How well do you know your data? Organizations should know which benefits are highly utilized by their workforces. Vendors, partners and administrators should provide useful dashboards and/or utilization reports that identify trends and gaps. Not only does this data help you identify which programs resonate among employees and their families, but they also indicate whether you are getting a return on that investment.
Performance reviews give way to feedback loops
The yearly performance review has been subject to much scrutiny recently. Many HR professionals question whether it is an effective performance-management technique. Even project-based management — where performance feedback is provided after a particular project or task is complete — has come under fire.
Instead, when the primary goal is employee success consider a culture of feedback loops as a more effective training, development and empowerment model. These loops provide two-way feedback throughout a project, task or shift, thus pivoting away from an individual performance-assessment model to a performance-partnership model, where the employee’s success (rather than their assessment) is the responsibility of the manager.
Feedback loops provide three important opportunities:
- The space for performance to be discussed in real-time (“you mapped out this project great” or “let’s work on making a few adjustments to your first draft”)
- A safe place to voice concerns (“this is taking longer than expected, lets figure out why together”)
- The opportunity to raise challenges before they become barriers to success (“we haven’t received all the data from the client, and it is slowing down the project, what should we do?”)
Remember the first word in HR is ‘human’
Society underwent massive upheavals in the past year and a half, causing many people to reevaluate their lives and jobs. But organizations have numerous tools available to strengthen their retention success.
By transparently aligning the organization’s business goals with its HR strategy and enforcing a culture where employees are empowered to meet their potential, companies will be well on their way to keeping the people they need to succeed.
Tami Simon, JD leads Segal’s Global Corporate Consulting business, providing business and workforce advice to large and mid-sized organizations. In addition to being a “go-to” thought leader quoted by top media outlets, Ms. Simon is popular public speaker who is best known for making complex subjects relevant, actionable and entertaining. She currently sits on the board of directors for several national industry associations and has testified before the U.S. Congress and several federal government agencies on behalf of employers.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax or investment advice. You are encouraged to discuss the issues raised here with your legal, tax and other advisors before determining how the issues apply to your specific situations.
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