One of the three ways to get to know employees better, with the ambition to boost employee engagement, is to focus on the “talent fit,” according to this Forbes article.
According to the article, the way to focus on “talent fit” is to ask employees if the job still fits them.
Pretty straightforward and not a bad idea at all.
Additionally, companies should leverage a model, preferably academically validated, to build those insights at scale.
4 reasons why software engineers leave their job.
Wait a minute, this is not what I’ve been sold. Often, the way the job has been offered initially doesn’t align with what it feels like to actually perform in the role, every day.
A remote work strategy shouldn’t revolve around the required amount of days employees must come to the office. It should be about the most efficient way to get synchronous work done. This depends heavily on how teams organize themselves, as opposed to an enforced, top-down approach.
In many cases, software engineers don’t really feel what their efforts contribute to. For clients or internal projects, ideally, the impact that they helped realize, should be made as tangible as possible.
Sleepless nights, plagued by that one stubborn bug that just won’t go away. An architectural innovation that dramatically reduces cost structure or doubles performance… So many efforts go by unnoticed. Without empathic leadership, the proverbial pat on the back, it’s hard to keep pushing code daily.
Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own story. This powerful quote by Franz Kafka potentially reveals a lot about us humans.
I believe that many of us are necessarily the hero(in) of our own job.
When employers, specifically managers and leaders, fail to recognize, respect, and empathize with their hero(in) employees, expecting them to be involved and engaged is unrealistic.
Thank you. These two words and their impact have been researched thoroughly, with tons of new research appearing every day.
When managers thank their employees for their contributions, acknowledge their achievements, and give credit where credit is due, employees are four times more likely to feel engaged.
Whom are you going to thank today?
Everyone is necessarily the hero of their own imagination. That’s what Franz Kafka once said allegedly.
Everyone wants to be the hero of their own job. When employers, more specifically managers and leaders, fail to show recognition, respect, and empathy, employee engagement is no longer an option.
In the land (and era) characterized by labor market shortage, the company that retains and engages their talent the best, will prevail.
The original quote — in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king — is credited to Desiderius Erasmus’s Adagia around the year 1500. Half a millennium later, the principle remains underrated.
While all your competitors focus on the ultra-short-term, hiring whoever applies, the companies who have a long-term strategy, will reign supreme. Those companies take bi-directional professional expectations into account to build a career perspective.
All hail to the kings of companies.
Thinking ahead for a couple of decades is tough for humans. If it weren’t, our climate would face fewer challenges today.
When a storm is coming, measures to limit damage are taken (relatively) fast. After the storm has blown by, few measures are taken to anticipate the next storm better.
HR has been weathering many storms lately. Solving employee engagement issues as they occur, on the one hand. Unfortunately, by then, it’s usually already too late. Fixing retention issues by hiring, on the other hand. The list of storm-combatting directives goes on…
The initiatives above are legitimate, short-term ways of combatting an HR storm today. However, the (hr) climate crisis will not fix itself without a strategic plan, spanning multiple years even.
Employee engagement is a proactive game.
There are levels to employee retention. Ordered from disastrous to excellent.
People are leaving faster than you can properly onboard them. They run away from your company as if they’ve seen a ghost. That’s bad.
People aren’t considering leaving your company at all. At the same time, they stopped being engaged years ago. They stay with your company due to the benefits your company provides. Their productivity is still stuck in the previous century.
People are considering leaving but really take their time. They’re concerned with how job-hopping might look on their resume, so they stay on for about a year, albeit unengaged.
Your employees are somewhat engaged and aren’t actively looking for a new job. If a better offer comes along, though, they might leave.
Your employees are super engaged. Beginning to think of leaving your company isn’t even an option.
Question: what’s worse than the first couple of levels of retention? Answer: not knowing where your employees are.
There isn’t one particular place in human resources processes where companies should focus on employee engagement. That’s a long way of saying, focus on employee engagement in every single step of the way.
There is, however, a natural order. Reverse that is.
Suppose people are leaving faster than you can hire them. In that case, there really is no point in focusing heavily on employee engagement at the start of the funnel, is there? Only to see them pack up and go a couple of months later?
Start mapping employee engagement with the people who are already there. Map employee engagement efforts in a retention process, and work your way back to recruitment.