Retaining Your Best Talent Part 3

Let’s continue with REASON NUMBER FOUR which is Limited personal and professional advancement opportunities.

Disappointment with career growth falls within six broad categories.

  1. Restricted growth opportunities.
  2. Unfair or inefficient internal selection process.
  3. Not hiring from within the organization.
  4. Unfairness or favoritism in promotion decisions.
  5. Insufficient training.
  6. Other related issues such as a lack of career development programs or clearly-defined career paths.

In a survey by the Conference Board, limited career opportunities were found to be the number one driver of overall employee dissatisfaction. This was actually cited by 59 % of all workers.

REASON NUMBER FIVE – The employee feels devalued and unrecognized.

Saratoga Institute’s survey shows several ways employees are made to feel less valued:

  1. Lack of simple appreciation. No thank you or worse being totally ignored.
  2. Too much focus on numbers and not enough on the employees. In this case, the employees say they feel like just a number. They feel like they have no personal identity.
  3. Feeling they deserve recognition and didn’t get it while others do.
  4. Feeling that no one even knows or cares if they exist.
  5. Recognition was too late in coming to be meaningful.
  6. Inability to provide input or their opinions in matters affecting the product or work- flow.

REASON NUMBER SIX- Stress from overwork and/or work-life imbalance.

We now know through various surveys that 25 % to 50 % of all workers report some level of stress and dysfunction which impacts profitability and the probability that the employee will stay with the company.

Causes include:

  • Doing more with less which is evident when the following occur:
  • When it takes too long to fill vacant positions.
  • When companies fail to take care of their employees.
  • When more work and responsibility are added without additional compensation or title promotion.
  • Abuse and insensitivity from leaders. Examples include:
  • Managers behaving in a condescending manner.
  • Managers refusing to deal with workplace bullies or address any form of harassment.
  • Consistently requiring employees to sacrifice family and personal time.
  • A fourth common stressor is the lack of fun at work. We should want all employees to have an engaged attitude toward their work and goals.
  • And finally, inadequate compensation and benefits. Included in this element are no personal time off or very little PTO, few holidays and poor maternity benefits.

REASON NUMBER SEVEN – Senior Leadership performance.

Research shows that the loss of trust and confidence in senior leaders has an infection rate that negatively affects the entire organization.

The special challenge facing senior leaders is how to create and maintain a culture of trust and integrity that strengthens the bonds of engagement and workplace continuity which aids in retaining the firm’s talent pool.

A sobering statistic revealed by the Watson-Wyatt Consulting Group establishes that companies with high trust cultures outperform companies with low trust cultures by a whopping 186 %.

The Saratoga Institute surveys also reveal some of the more troubling issues surfaced by workers when asked to rate or describe their opinions of senior leaders. They are as follows:

  1. A basic lack of trust and integrity.
  2. Senior leaders are out of touch with day-to-day realities of the workplace. In effect, upper management is ignorant of daily activities and are usually out of sight.
  3. Senior leaders seem greedy and full of self-interest.
  4. Upper management shows a lack of concern and appreciation of employees.

Three questions that all employees need answered are:

  1. Will these leaders be successful? This concern arises out of the need for job security.
  2. Can I trust them? This question gets to the heart of organizational integrity and obviously includes supervisors.
  3. Do they have trust and confidence in me? This indicates a necessary reciprocal commitment process.

We’ll address more on this topic in upcoming Express Pro Talks. So, in conclusion, I would encourage you to review segments one and two where I present a discussion of the engagement process and the consequences of failures. I hope you will join us again and access the current library of topics. Should you need further help, don’t hesitate to call your local Express office. Until next time, this is Russ Moen for Express Pro Talks.