Season 4 of Engaging your People for Success- 'Why am I Losing so Many of my People'

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Introduction

People are the powerhouse behind everything, they are an intrinsic part of your business, and your everyday life. If you can't engage and work with them in a mutually beneficial style then everything suffers.

I passionately believe in not only ensuring your people are engaged, but in putting people at the centre of the work equation. Whilst the business, or product, or service, is still vitally important, it is the people that will ultimately make or break your company's success.

Many Business owners forget this, and get too heavily involved in metrics, ignoring the empathetic leadership that is needed to build a successful company culture. Culture is king especially now that the new generation of workers want to feel connected, valued and able to make a difference in their organisations…...or they move quickly.

In today’s show I will take you through the steps for giving you many different ways in which you can structure your business to make sure it not only retains the Best Talent, but also makes your business one that people want to join.


Show Objectives - The Why

Today’s show is building on our previous shows this week as we explore your employee’s perceptions and needs to get a pulse on what could be going on in their lives as they navigate new working conditions and the challenges, struggles and opportunities of their roles; and how as a business you can not only manage that, but capitalise on it. Retaining Good Talent is crucial to any businesses ability to innovate, grow and succeed.

Key Issues - Owner Perspective:

1. Losing good talent is expensive to any business
   

1. There are several external factors that need to be considered as well as internal ones, the key external ones when you are developing your business direction, these are;
   

1. The Gig economy.
   
2. Gen Y and beyond being more focused on finding something that fits  culturally with their beliefs and having a high willingness to change roles if they don’t.
   
3. The death of the long term job, replaced by 2-7 year workers
   
4. Out of the box things like a global pandemic
   
5. Work from home and workforce flexibility
   
6. Remote workforces
   
7. AI
   

What You Need to Know -

It is always a loss to see good talent leave an organisation unnecessarily, so what are the key issues that cause good staff, or in reality a lot of staff to leave, and quite often the bad, or underperforming ones to stay? They mostly revolve around culture. Getting your culture right is one of the single most important things a business needs to do to set them up for long term success, and retaining good staff. Staff need to feel valued and your culture should embrace and promote that..

Key warning signs that your culture has degraded or become toxic and you will lose the Best Talent

1. Disengaged staff
   
2. Group clicks
   
3. Silo thinking and mentality
   
4. Increased sick leave
   
5. Increased turnover
   
6. Lack of accountability
   
7. Blame culture
   
8. Bullying
   
9. Nepotism
   
10. Disengaged staff
    
11. High staff turn over
    
12. Lack of teamwork
    

​What You Need to Do​​ - The How- Segment 3

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Sibhan’s book gives a great Culture change diagram that is relevant for every business and helps keep you on track. The steps work and guide you to success.

Linked closely to Culture is Leadership, the two are symbiotic. You need exceptional leaders in order to have a continuously great culture.

The strongest piece of advice I can give, that I have seen work time and time again, is to get the right Leadership team in place who embraces developing a sustainable culture that focuses on people and the business. This works well, but it does take commitment.

Think about it, you can control your area, so how do you do that?

The key needs that staff are now looking for to stay in a role, are fairly consistent across industries. What surprises most people is the consistent No1 need is not money, instead it is having a good manager and feeling valued. So we are back to leadership and culture.
So what does a good manager look like to staff?

The research shows that having a good leader, means they are leading based on empathic leadership, so staff are looking for a boss who can;

Understand that they are more than just a worker.

 This means someone who can be approached when things go wrong either personally or professionally, without prejudice.

1. Someone who treats all staff equally
   
2. Someone who recognizes staff
   
3. Someone who promotes continued learning and alternative projects
   
4. Someone who is not command and control, but rather gets the job done through involving staff and making them feel valued….Value is one of the key points that constantly comes up.
   

Key points for you to focus on in your business are

• Psychological safety
  
• Ability to be recognised
  
• A feeling of belonging
  
• Supportive relationships
  
• The opportunity to make a difference, and Corporate Social responsibility        
  
• New projects and opportunities to learn and grow
  
• Inclusive on boarding that allows staff to understand the company and feel part of something bigger, as well as feeling truly welcomed
  
• Team environment
  
• Emphatic and emotionally available leadership
  
• Agile to flexible work environments
  
• Non-monetary benefits- charity, time off, part time, WFH, study leave etc
  
• A clear career path, that is achievable and supported
  
• Accessible training
  
• Clear and constant grading and job requirements
  
• Cross training
  

All work together to promote and maintain a positive organisational Culture!


On top of this employees need a clear career path, and succession plan, they need to see it is achievable and understand how they can go about getting to where they want to be in the business.

So what do employees want out of having a career path available and accessible, that is supported by their manager?
 

• Value;
  
• Promotions- more money
  
• Sense of self-worth and achievement
  
• A plan for the future
  
• Having their voice heard
  
• Self improvement
  
• Recognition
  
• Fulfillment
  

                               
What about those that are 100% happy where they are?
They still want to feel valued- but they don’t want to change roles, and that is good as it gives you a stable staff.
The still want to feel like they are achieving something
They still want their voices heard.
They still want to be recognised
Don’t forget some will be planning of retirement (flexible work packages, and mentoring)
Make sure your career paths and training and develop also cater to these ‘lateral’ employees


So whilst that takes time to achieve, there are so many steps you can implement on the way that will start to help from Day 1.


Shows
Previous: Episode P5.010 Hire the Best Talent
Next: Episode P5.011 Quick at Separating Mismatches from Business 

Written by Lisa Askwith

Director of ApexBRS | ApexBRS, Regional Director of See Global Media, Chair of  EGN Singapore, and Associate Professor Cambridge Corporate University | At the Age of Change, providing the HR component of the Global Executive MBA and BBA.

You can connect with Lisa on any of her platforms

LinkedIn Lisa Askwith - Director - Apex BRS
https://www.apexbrs.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ApexBRS
https://tockify.com/ibgrnetwork/pinboard?search=lisa&startms=1602216000000

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