Looking for the Purple Squirrel?

Looking for a Purple Squirrel Too?

The unemployment rate is 3.5% - record lows in most of our working lifetimes. While all industries are struggling, there are some who have figured out a few secrets to success. The reality is that there is no quick fix or solution - it's a long-term approach for success. There are still great people in the workforce though. You may have trouble finding them for the same reason that you have a hard time keeping the ones that you have - namely, that the temptations of others are greater than the pull to stay with you. If that's your situation, it's fixable, although it does take some work, and an openness to change. If you're ready, we'll give you the top three things you can do to find your purple squirrel.

The Power of Relationships

 1. Are your leaders great listeners? One of the key responsibilities of leaders is listening to the workforce, customers, suppliers, partners, and other stakeholders. Effective listening requires that leaders consider inputs and feedback, and act upon it as needed. That's not enough though. Leaders need to message back to the workforce and key stakeholders what they've done, and why, in response to feedback. As this cycle repeats, the workforce begins to build trust that what's heard is valued and acted upon, building relationships. Over time, these stakeholders begin to be more open with opportunities to evolve the business processes and services, which helps the organization to be more customer and workforce-focused, boosting innovation. An organization that is customer and workforce focused becomes a talent magnet, where work is valued, and workers make a difference. Listening can happen in a number of ways, however one of our favorite tools is employee engagement surveys. These provide an anonymous and unbiased source of feedback that helps your workforce to be truly heard. Every sized budget can do this. We know, because we can help you do this within your budget, with a focus on creating trusted relationships among your teams and leaders. Using a benchmark helps to keep the focus upon continuous improvement, while addressing the areas of greatest opportunity in departments, or across the organization. Between engagement surveys, hold open forums and listening sessions, take notes of questions or issues, and close the loop in a timely manner.  

The Power of Improvement

 2. Are you progressive in work processes and technology? Let's be honest, if you have two options of places to work, and one of them is future-focused, using cool tools and technology, and the other one is stuck in a rut without those, where will you want to go? Of course - cool stuff! Great leaders are visionary, embracing the future, and positioning the business to get there, along with early stage competitors. That means that effectively executing your business strategy of effective, efficient work processes and current technology tools also helps you recruit the best talent! You probably assumed that, but do you know how much of an impact it makes to your talent recruitment and bottom line. There are ways to determine this, that should be part of the opportunity cost considerations of technology and process change proposals. Let your workforce know that you are future-focused, and are exploring some forward-leading ideas, even those that don't work out. Innovative companies aren't afraid to fail fast, and that may endear your workforce in honesty and transparency. Have you evaluated your key work processes for efficiency? How do your technology tools create greater ease or efficiency for your workforce? If you haven't assessed these, this is also an essential step to focus your efforts on areas of greatest impact to talent retention. Your team knows where your biggest gaps and opportunities are. If you fail to address these, your talent knows it, and starts to look elsewhere for an organization that cares more about their products and mission. Your challenge is to determine how to get better faster, and how to set expectations for a strong ROI for those changes. Process optimization is not for rookies, however it can be done in every organization. If you've not done this, or don't have an internal expert, let's connect. You may actually like process mapping, and the awesome results realized! 

The Power of Respect​

3. Does your compensation system reward high performers? Whether we're welcoming millennials, baby boomers, or everyone in between, people value those who respect and value them. There are two essential factors within evidence of respect - a fair, market-based compensation system, and recognition for exceptional work. If your compensation system isn't comparable to your regional market, you'll continue to lose your best talent based on basic value economics. If your performance management system rewards everyone for showing up and meeting the standards, then your high achievers will quickly become disenfranchised. They want a chance to excel, and reflect exceptional value. If you don't provide that opportunity for recognition, your competition will. Simple. Know your numbers, and make the numbers not the issue. Another key factor for employee and leader retention is recognition, and the opportunity to grow. Do you regularly recognize high levels of performance? How do you do it? Is everyone eligible? Is the recognition relative to the effort required or necessary, or is it unattainable? If you don't have a system of recognition, is it a common practice of your leaders? If not, can you make some changes? A strong relationship to an immediate supervisor can help employees feel so valued and respected that they would not think of leaving. That's your cultural goal. 

     Creating Action for Change 

Now that you've recognized that there are things that you can do to make a change, and retain your talent, where do you start? Finding that purple squirrel is really about establishing an amazing culture where you grow them from within. While every company's needs are unique, here are some general recommendations to get started: ​

​1. Start with a current-state evaluation - an overall organizational evaluation is quick, low-cost, and helps you develop the action plan that is best suited to your company and workforce. This is a very sound investment for faster planning, intervention, and results. This can be done by a stakeholder survey, or facilitated focus groups. 

​2. Conduct a workforce engagement survey - an unbiased and third-party survey helps to ensure the workforce of anonymity, which encourages feedback. Get statistically significant results with a nationally benchmarked email survey and follow-up process. Knowing where your baseline is creates meaningful improvement.

​3. Evaluate how your leaders listen and engage - Two-way communication mechanisms are essential in developing a healthy workplace culture. An internal evaluation of your different types of listening mechanisms and their effectiveness will likely identify significant gaps and opportunity areas. We have a great assessment tool for this. 

​4. Evaluate and optimize your work processes - if you've not identified your key work processes, or mapped them for efficiency optimization, there is likely 30% waste in your work processes (industry average). Removing the waste involves accurately identifying your key work processes, and then mapping and tweaking them for efficiency benefits.

​5. Evaluate your leader and workforce compensation system - most HR leaders have a mechanism of ensuring market-based compensation. We also have a resource to determine leadership and C-suite compensation, benchmarked by region, industry, and role, through a national compensation benchmarking firm. 

​6. Evaluate your reward and recognition system - when you answer the questions about how high performance is recognized, insight may be realized of areas of need. Your workforce likely wants a fair and competitive compensation system and an opportunity to develop career skills for the future. Keep your eyes and actions on this to keep them. 

Here to Help...

​If you know that you, or your team, need help with any of the above aspects, let's connect. Our passion is to help every business to keep their talent, in order to achieve the best results and organizational performance into the future. We've delivered these solutions to some of the top organizations in the nation. We'd love to help you too.

​Your Success is Our success.