How to Ensure Engagement, Especially from Your Top Talent

Why do nearly 80% of your employees say they would quit work tomorrow if they could afford it? What a starling and sobering statistic from a survey conducted by Right Management! Disengagement is the buzz word of the day…and for good reason. Employees are burned out, frustrated, overworked, and trying to find meaning outside of their jobs….on YOUR time. According to Forbes blogger Eric Jackson, “Top talent leave an organization when they’re badly managed and the organization is confusing and uninspiring.”

Over half of the reasons talent leaves the organization is due to a lack of direction and poor performance feedback from their manager. Here are 3 Ways you can help your company and your employees:

Over half of the reasons talent leaves the organization is due to a lack of direction and poor performance feedback from their manager.  Here are 3 Ways you can help your company and your employees:

1. Redefine and update your organizations mission on a regular basis. Business is dynamic.  What was a priority last year may have changed. Your best employees can tell you what has changed in the marketplace.  Does your communication plan take into account input from all levels in your organization?  Be clear about what you and your organization are trying to accomplish. A vision is more than words.  It is a visual path toward the organization’s purpose and the kind of culture you want to create in order to meet that purpose. Employees will make this happen if their input is brought into the process and they know how their success will be measured.
2. Get employees excited again. Listen to your leaders and give them what they need to fulfill their passion.  Of the eight top reasons that engage employees, money does not make the list.  Save yourself money and improve your employee engagement scores by listening to your employees, from the most senior manager to the most junior employee. Get out from behind your desk and get to know the individuals in your organization. They need to feel heard.
3. Rebuild confidence and focus on your Senior Management team. Management is overwhelmed with priorities, deadlines and new issues that they have never faced before.  Provide a fresh perspective so that they can become creative and innovative.  A six to twelve month plan properly designed and executed with a professional strategic coach or mentor, will help realign individual goals with the organization’s mission.  Decision making will improve, relationships will be built, and silos will break down.  The stage will be set for future success.

Many times managers are “breathing their own fumes” and experiencing the same difficult cycles.  They only know what they’ve been exposed to. With the guidance of a professional coach, either internally or from outside the company, new initiatives will be developed and implemented. Six to twelve months of strategic advising and regularly scheduled sessions are imperative to solidify new practices that will become the new way of thinking.

What are you doing to keep your employees engaged so that they can “play” to their full potential? How much money are you “leaving on the table” as a result of not growing and engaging all of your employees?  For more information on how to improve engagement and develop leaders who have an owner mentality, contact Helton Consulting Group at [email protected] or call 917.930.4855.