Anyone who has been reading this blog over the last six months or so knows that I have been warning companies to pay more attention to their top producers. I have cautioned that, in spite of unemployment rates that seem stuck around 9%, there is a new battle for top talent brewing.
Recently an article in Forbes echoed that sentiment. In it author Judy Martin suggests that the C-suite has developed “talent retention concerns” and according to Marketwatch.com’s Chief Economist, Irwin Kellner, that uneasiness should come as no surprise. He says that, “all the slashing and burning of the workforce has severely wounded (a company’s) ability to motivate its employees.”
He’s right. Most businesses have simultaneously overworked and undervalued their employees for quite some time now. As a result top performers are eyeing the exits. It is a problem, but I don’t believe that it can’t be fixed.
It’s not too late to offer thanks and appreciation to your employees, many of whom took on more responsibility than they could reasonably handle. Over the last few years, workers—many of whom had loved their jobs—lost that emotional connection. Still, they stuck it out and soldiered on. Well things have changed and as the emerging data makes clear, good employees are beginning to look for—and in some cases are finding—new opportunities elsewhere.
Even in a tough economy good people will always have options. But strong employees are in even higher demand as the recovery starts to pick up steam. Your immediate priority must be to make sure they have no reason to pursue—let alone entertain—any option that involves leaving. If you’re an HR leader, your immediate priority must be to hold on to your top people. A targeted recognition program is key to that mission.
I was on my way back from the Training 2012 Conference & Expo in Atlanta when I came across the latest edition of the Harvard Business Review at the airport.
The cover story –the one with the big happy face on the cover—explores the “economic value” of employee happiness. I read it from cover to cover, and for anyone in the HR space interested in understanding the connection between people—their happiness and the profits they represent to their employers—it is required reading.
For those of you who don’t have the free time that comes with being sequestered on an airplane for two and a half hours here are some crib notes to go by; the pathway to an employee’s happiness comes from being engaged in creating the future—for themselves and the company that employs them. In addition to being energized by the work they do, employees also are motivated by learning—and by that I mean new knowledge and skills and ways of using both. According to the authors, people who are encouraged to develop their abilities are much more likely to “believe in their further growth.” They call that “thriving” and it is the real growth/development path that employees want to be on. Encouraging new behavior within any organization begins with acknowledging the effort and for that you should use role modeling and reinforcement mechanisms.
To keep your employees motivated, engaged and on the pathway to happiness, integrate your reward programs with your learning and development strategies. That will keep your employees happy and marching in the right direction.
I am looking forward to my presentation today at the Training 2012 Conference & Expo in Atlanta. I’ll be talking about rewards and recognition and how they can improve the impact of your company’s training Investment.
As some learning and development leaders are discovering, offering a core curriculum—no matter how well developed—may not be enough to sustain behaviors over time.
A whopping 98 percent of companies continued to experience “performance deficiencies” even after substantial investments in employee development and learning were made. And, 78 percent of senior-level business managers felt their educational efforts have returned no measurable return.
That is why some of the most progressive organizations in the world are integrating reinforcement and reward mechanisms into their training strategies. They have learned that they can drive and sustain change through an integrated formula of personalized communications, relevant objectives and reward offerings that motivate their employees to use new skills in everyday work settings. In my presentation I will outline how a combination of personalized communications, targeted learning and performance related incentives drives the best outcomes.
I am speaking today (2/14 – Happy Valentine’s Day) at 3:30PM, but if you aren’t going to be at the conference you can get my thoughts on the subject by reading the latest edition Performance Perspectives or contacting me directly.
Thanks to the rise of social media darling Foursquare, which rewards users that frequently “check in” to select destinations, e.g., restaurants, museums, stores, with badges – like the ones earned by childhood scouts to demonstrate an acquired skill – are arriving on the corporate scene. HREonline recently addressed the broad
HR impacts of badges.
We’ve been developing social recognition portals with recognition badges for clients in their recognition portals to leverage the excitement and growing adoption of social media and the growing social workforce environment. There are some great benefits to the badges approach. It reinforces learning and growth as a part of the corporate values and it is a practical database component that makes it easier to match the right talent to the right situations. Not to mention it helps keep employees excited – especially the younger generation that looks closely at career alignment, e.g., what am I learning today, how does this benefit my personal professional brand.
For any organization struggling with how to add more social elements to their rewards program, here are a few tips for adding badges to a core recognition offering:
Use badges to…..
- Recognize the recognizer….Individuals that recognize frequently
- Recognize employee milestones
- Recognize top recognition recipients
- Recognize employees meeting training and learning objectives
- Recognize for employee mentorship
- Recognize for innovation
CNBC ran a feature last month called Customer (Dis) Service. Did you see it? They suggested that good customer service has become “less of a priority” for some companies and suggested that many organizations should do more to meet—let alone exceed—their clients’ expectations. I could not agree more.
Customer care has already become the critical differentiator in the marketplace, especially in talent-based businesses where people—their attitudes and their actions —are at the core of how the business is perceived and valued by its clientele. That sentiment is why many business pundits have said that “killer customer service” is poised to become the “killing app” of our times.
According to a recent article in McKinsey, everyone along the value chain—from accounting to sales to R&D to IT—is responsible for the brand –more specifically, for maintaining and exceeding the promise it represents. Progressive companies are embracing the notion that the intersection of the customer and the employee is the “moment of truth” for their business and the credibility of what it promises. Get it wrong, slip up on service and millions in marketing is wasted and—by the way –the customer is probably gone for good as well.
As more and more companies tweak their market messages to promise a more accountable and personalize customer experience isn’t it about time that your employee reward programs reinforced those same outcomes? If customer care is indeed a priority for your organization, so too should be your employee rewards program.
