A Meeting of Minds
Most CEOs at some time will expound on the idea that their company’s people are their greatest asset. They undoubtedly mean it and the oft quoted ‘war for talent’ suggests that their competitors are as anxious as they are to attract and retain the best people.
For many of our clients there is little problem with attraction, even in today’s environment of high employment big name companies are attractive. The challenge is often more around retention. When a company employs a talented person, they invest heavily in them (and the talent in return invests heavily in the company), not just in the recruitment process but in their induction programme and ongoing development. From the company’s point of view, they are clearly hoping that their investment will pay back, that the employee will stay a long time, develop their talent and add real value – adding to that almost priceless asset – human capital.
These days, employee perspectives are somewhat different from their counterparts in previous decades. In the past, employees were inclined to build their careers at one company, today people are more eclectic in their career-building approach. Longer-term relationships can still happen but for these to work, the agenda of both parties needs to be closely and consistently aligned.
The company needs to understand their employees’ evolving aspirations and work to make sure that they are in a position to play their part in delivering on them. The employee needs to demonstrate that they are very clear in their understanding of what the company is trying to achieve and that they are demonstrably making a valuable contribution to achieving it. In other words, the dialogue needs to be open, honest and current.
One way in which dialogue between employees and senior management is channeled currently is through the employee engagement survey. In recent years we have supported a range of clients, helping them to get under the skin of their engagement survey results. At the moment, a common theme is an apparently growing disconnect between the workforce and their senior leadership teams. Employees often feel that leadership are out of touch with the realities which they are grappling with further down in the business. They can be frustrated by the tendency to talk down to them in ‘sound bites’ rather than to engage in more personal and rounded conversations. Further, employees like to feel that not only are their day-to-day challenges recognised and their opinions valued but that their work is really worthwhile in the context of what their company is trying to achieve. To this end, they want a clear understanding of what the business is trying to achieve and the thrust of the strategy set out to get there. Surprisingly employees are often not at all clear on the longer-term goals of the business and related strategy. If that’s the case, they are going to struggle with aligning their personal ambitions with those of the business and that’s how disengagement sets in and attrition happens.
Organisations are waking up to the idea that conversations between employer and employee need to be more transparent and more frequent. Fortunately, digital technology can now allow that to happen more easily. Firms can set up mobile phone enabled, live conversations that connect employees and leaders across divisions and markets and allow dialogue to build and develop, to positive effect. It’s a form of ‘open system’ thinking and enlightened organisations who really seek to build the value of their human capital and make their firms not just the place to join, but to stay, are generally pretty good at it. The key to retention is to ensure an ongoing meeting of minds between talent and employer with both sides working hard to align their needs and objectives in a dance towards fulfillment.