Accountability: The Top Word

Accountability is the top word

I recently presented two sessions at the 2019 SHRM Talent Conference in Nashville, TN. Before my session, A 7-Step Plan for Managers To Raise Their Engagement Scores, I went table-to-table to ask participants what they most wanted to learn. It was the same answer at every table, accountability, reflecting the total frustration with leaders on all levels who make people-management commitments and then break them.

During this same period of time, two big-name manufacturing firms asked us to roll out our retention solutions to all of their U.S. plants. There is a theme here.

Our company began in my mind while still an HR executive…now a “recovering” one…when my CEO challenged me to cut turnover, and I then asked the COO to hold leaders accountable to achieving a retention goal. Turnover nose-dived, we saved over $4 million in three months, and the CEO gave me an award. All I did was ask the top executive who managed those who supervised the people to hold those managers accountable.

Many of you know our Finnegan’s Arrow model:

Finnegans Arrow ForTM

Note the last component is “accountability”. Picture how this would work in your company: After working with your executives to determine turnover’s costs and goals, we then train managers to facilitate Stay Interviews so they can build one-on-one stay plans…and then forecast how long each employee will stay. Next, we role-model accountability by doing this:

  • Meet onsite with leaders to demonstrate the accountability report with their name on it to show their performance against goals, and also ask them to report their stay plans and forecasts for each employee
  • Then meet with their executive team remotely for six months to study together each leader’s performance against goals and their forecasts

The lesson we have learned is the same one those attendees in Nashville told me, that accountability doesn’t come easy…or naturally in many organizations. So, we role-model it by directing executives to take action on leaders who are not building the right stay plans, forecasting incorrectly, or flat-out not making their retention goals.

We’ve built our reputation on Stay Interviews but our Arrow notes that dollars, goals, forecasts AND accountability must surround them. This is the business-driven solution that drives down turnover, increases employee engagement, and has caused these two national manufacturing firms, and others, to ask for our help to implement it in their companies.

Schedule a free one-on-one strategy session with our team and we will listen to your concerns, probe deeply to learn more about your workplace needs and work together to find solutions to cut turnover and improve employee engagement. https://go.oncehub.com/TeamFinnegan

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