Employee engagement strategies often fail due to over-reliance on surveys which many employees distrust. The key to success is recognizing that engagement goes beyond a simple survey score and ensuring executives and managers view engagement and retention as critical metrics that influence overall operational performance, especially through strong leader-employee relationships.
Monday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent a memo to employees outlining several cultural and operational changes including mandating a full return to the office at the start of 2025. For many future years we will read reports and say, “The pandemic caused that” and at top of the list is the work-from-home (WFH) phenomena that today has led to an increased level of tension between employees who have embraced it and employers, like Amazon, who are over it.
Making the connection between culture and people is every company’s objective, as every company wants a good one. According to Harvard Business Review, 89% of companies want a culture of productivity and collaboration. So if our culture is 89% similar to so many others, how do we distinguish ourselves when hiring, engaging, and retaining the very best talent?
Human Resources work is now, more than ever, the most important work. We are in the bullseye of turnover, engagement, retention, and recruiting challenges with no end in sight. A recent study reveals that the top assignment from CEOs to HR is improving retention. I know you accept this challenge/opportunity/burden, but how are you going to make it happen?
While exit surveys bring a concept that at first glance should be helpful to our overall retention quest, the combination of poor survey design, minimal truth-telling, and the absence of constructive follow-up all dilute their value. You should be asking “Why do you stay?” versus “Why are you leaving?” to get better employee retention data for your company.
Each week I present here the absolute best information and solutions to implement Stay Interviews and cut employee turnover. But today, I want to invite you to spend a few days in Florida learning it all such that you could return home to MAKE IT HAPPEN…to not only reduce turnover but also slash open jobs, make real employee engagement happen, and improve productivity across your company.
Most employees can immediately tell you why they might leave, but few have actually catalogued in their minds why they stay. Stay Interviews Question 3 is important as it causes employees to self-search. And once they announce to you why they stay they also announce it to themselves…and they tend to never forget it.
Gallup recently announced that early in 2024 employee engagement had reached an 11-year low. Gallup attributes this absence of engagement improvement to areas like lack of job clarity, a short supply of manager skills, and survey burnout among other reasons.
Recent surveys say these are the at-work values young workers hold most dear: Mobility, entrepreneurial freedom, and flexibility. Lock these key employee retention words into your brain, make them pop up on your computer screen first thing each morning because 53% of your Gen Z and millennials will consider leaving this year.
Recently I’ve seen two examples of organizations essentially saying that increased turnover is unavoidable and then proposed work-around plans with no proven track records. In fact these voices are saying that entire industries, supply chain management and nursing, have no fix for turnover and they should waive a white flag of surrender.