Improving Employee Retention Through Engagement

A friend of mine told me he heard a speech recently by a Ph. D. in physics. This man earned his degree about 20 years ago.  He made this statement: “More than half of the correct answers I gave on my finals 20 years ago are no longer true. What we have learned in science in the past 20 years has yielded new truths that didn’t exist 20 years ago.”

We get it in science, but we don’t get it with people. We need to change and build upon what we now know about people to foster engagement in the workplace.

What is true today? Motivation – therefore engagement – comes from loving what you do. You love what you do when you’re in the right position and growing.
David Ogilvy said: “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people bigger than we are, [we] will become a company of giants.”

People want to achieve at their highest level of potential. They want to be seen in the best light. They want to be fully engaged. Your people are your most important asset and therefore your responsibility. Help them love what they do and they are yours – fully engaged.

Assessing current employees can increase retention and spark engagement.  Consider these questions:

1. Is the employee using her natural skills?  
2. What is her productivity level compared with her potential?  
3. How is the team’s productivity?  
4. Should this employee be counseled to consider work in a different environment?  
5. Should the employee be repositioned or reclassified?  
6. Is the employee ready for new responsibilities?  
7. What can her direct supervisor do to increase her job satisfaction?

“Only through dedicated work does a man fulfill himself.”
- William S. Carlson

Surveys say up to 84 percent of people enjoy what they do, but not where they do it.  Specifically, they cite company policies that inhibit creativity, rules and procedures that make no sense, and executives who live on a planet called entitlement.  While most workers do not begrudge leadership making more money, the issue of entitlement often becomes entwined with other day-to-day worker grievances, becoming the focus of anger and resentment and producing a negative synergy that promotes disengagement.

“Anybody can become angry–that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way–that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.”
- Aristotle

In 207 B.C, 2000 years ago, the Chinese Han dynasty attempted to create a scientific process for hiring their civil servants. They thought the answer would be to write detailed job descriptions, but despite this rationale, few of the people hired performed as they expected.

Today’s hiring efforts are more daunting than ever. Resumes often leave hiring managers with more questions than answers. Even after thinking they made a “good” hire, it’s not unusual for hiring managers to be left wondering, “What was I thinking?” Not unlike the days of 207 B.C., it is still impossible for hiring to be done by a scientific process. Only a systematic approach and an awareness of common mistakes made in the hiring process will enhance your odds of hiring superior performers. From research conducted by The Kabachnick Group we found the following to be the most common mistakes made during the hiring process:

1. Hiring in reactive mode. Too often there is panic and a feeling of having to quickly fill a position simply to replace someone who has just left, causing steps to be skipped and potential dangers to be overlooked.
2. Expecting to find the twin. Susan was terrific, so I need to find another Susan. The only thing we’ve successfully cloned so far is sheep, so don’t expect to clone Susan.
3. Unrealistic expectations. The job description looks like it was created for Superman, including expectations that no one person could possibly meet.
4. Asking poor interview questions. The interviewer fails to probe into specific examples, focusing instead on generalizations or opinions versus substantive facts, as if they were taken right out of a book on how to interview.
5. Taking the resume at face value. Beware of simply taking the resume at face value. Think of it as “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” because it probably is. After all, who is about to include that six month stint that was a complete failure?
6. Relying on references. No one lists anyone but positive references. And, even if they did, with today’s legal issues, no one’s about to reveal the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
7. I like you because you’re just like me. It’s very easy to fall into the “halo” trap and like the candidate because he/she’s a lot like you. The problem is, your job is already filled and the one you’re trying to fill likely has a whole different set of criteria.
8. Undefined job competencies. Because the competencies required for top performance in the job have not been clearly defined, and because the candidate’s competencies have not clearly been identified, there is no assurance that the candidate is actually well matched for succeeding in the job.
9. Past performance assumptions. Just because the candidate has previously performed in a job that seems similar there is an assumption that their past success will be duplicated in this job. Since you have no way of knowing the true nature of the previous job, this can not only be a bad assumption-it can be a dangerous one.
10. Failing to follow any real interview process. All too often there is no systematic approach tied to the interview process other than identifying who interviews the candidate. Without a systematic hiring process to follow, both you and the candidate risk eventual disappointment.

Does your hiring process take into consideration all hiring systems take into consideration all the critical elements that are necessary for superior performance in a job? When a good person is aligned with the skills and behaviors necessary for success in the job, you’ll find an individual who will likely experience job satisfaction and good performance. However, when that same good person is also aligned with culture fit, that’s when you get a passionate, committed and superior performer. There is a difference.

The trend of employers having to deal with a declining performance in the workplace seems to be intensifying according to recent research by The Kabachnick Group. Here are some of our latest discoveries:

• 92% of employers tell us their company fails to deal effectively with poor performers.
• 54% of employees leaving a company do so because of having to deal with disengaged co-workers.
• 78% of managers tell us their greatest challenge is “managing today’s workers.”

What’s an employer to do? Here are a few of our recommendations: Read all of the post »

How do you know if you have a good person-to-position match-up? The obvious answer would be a happy, productive, engaged and motivated employee. If this is so simple then why are so many employees and employers unhappy with each other? The answer to this question begins with the employer’s awareness of the employees’ natural behavior and communication preferences. This awareness stems from believing that each employee is a unique individual with natural talents and abilities, and with one important common need: to be happy.

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Many experts believe that within a few years the U.S. will face a shortfall of 10 million workers, mostly in the frontline service sector. As a result, it is predicted that it will be increasingly more difficult to find employees willing to work for minimum wage or slightly more. There is good news though. More and more part-time workers will be available, thanks to changing beliefs, values, work and job preferences, social needs and retirees who don’t want to retire.

The biggest problem faced by this increasingly important group of workers, is the attitudes of their bosses, managers and full-time co-workers, who too often regard the part-timers contributions to the work-place as insignificant. Yes, part-timers are made to feel insignificant when in fact, the opposite is true. Our research reveals that part-timers’ performance scores are approximately 30% higher than full-timers’. Part-timers also show a higher energy level, do not get bored as easily, and are less likely to get caught up in work-place politics. After all, they simply have less time to develop these less desirable habits.

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As customers, we have been “served” by people who quit but never left. As employees, we have been managed by bosses who stopped managing, but managed to stay. As managers, we have managed people who physically attend, but mentally pretend. We call them—disengaged workers—a deadly virus that’s spreading throughout American business.

Survey after survey reveals that the number one issue facing business today is finding and retaining talented employees. Nationally, employee turnover averages 12 percent each year, a challenge that is costing millions. Yet retention is not a cure for turnover. Retaining a disengaged employee is actually far worse than letting him go—regardless of how valuable he once was.
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Given the ever-changing factors in today’s pool of available engaged talent, managing human inventory is every bit as important – if not more – than managing product inventory. Why? Because in reality, people are companies and companies are its people.

Today, businesses have more difficulty finding and retaining productive workers than they do finding and building loyal customers. Even the best employees can become disillusioned and disengaged when they’re not treated as individual adults who are striving to become more than interchangeable cogs in the corporate machinery. In fact, your very best employees will be the first to leave if their needs and desires are not met.

Pay attention to your best employees. These are the people managers inadvertently ignore because they’re busy focusing on problem employees. Consider the advantages of improving a top-performer’s productivity by just 10%, rather than improving the performance of a mediocre worker by 10%. Keep in mind that the best employees are always the first to leave.

React to poor performers quickly. Your employees know before you do who is slacking off on the job and not contributing. Make it easy for caring workers to come to you with concerns about a fellow employee’s work habits. Emphasize that these conversations are confidential, but also indicate that you want specific examples – not random observations. Then, act on this information!

Disengagement occurs in stages. By the time an employee becomes “actively disengaged” it’s usually too late for intervention. By now the employee has become disruptive, unproductive, and has infected others in negative ways. It would be an impossible feat for him or her to retract everything she’s complained about and now adopt a positive attitude.

Important Note: Your good people are always the first to leave. They’re the ones with the most confidence and a proven track record. They know they’re talented and that their odds of getting a new job are very good. They also will not put up with someone else taking the joy out of their workday. In today’s world, people follow the natural leader, regardless of official job title.

Are you trying to deal with disengaged co-workers or employees?

I’m noticing a perilous situation in businesses. Employers are apprehensive of calling people to task and holding them accountable, even fearful of reprimanding poor performance. Managers are frequently ignoring behaviors, which in the past would be deemed unacceptable. As a result, employees are sensing they can “get away with things”. This is a result of the growing problem of talent shortage.

Here are some interesting discoveries from our recent research on employee engagement:

• 92% say their company does not deal with poor performers
• 44% leave their jobs due to co-workers disengagement

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