Keeping your employees engaged in an economic downturn is critical – engaged employees perform better, are more loyal and contribute more to the organisation’s bottom line. In such times you need to work harder to motivate and retain your best people. The best talent remains mobile in spite of economic uncertainty – losing key performers, experience and intellectual property at this time can be very costly.
Getting answers to the following questions is vitally important right now and will largely determine your organisation’s ability to make real headway in 2010.
- Do you know how engaged your people are?
- Do you know who’s generating the most revenue?
- Do you know who’s thinking about leaving?
- Do you know who’s looking after your customers properly?
- Do you know who’s taking best care of delivery and customer service?
- Do you know who’s building your brand, and who’s devaluing it?
- Do you know who’s loyal and engaged?
- Do you know your longest serving employees and why?
- Do you really understand the current mood within the organisation?
- Do you really know your people well and how they perceive you and the organisation for whom they work?
During challenging times it is critical that any new employer branding initiative or change of direction can be justified in terms of ROI. Gaining insight from employees, new hires and leavers clarifies what people really like about working for your organisation. This baseline information will indicate the current state of engagement and appropriate courses of action for employers wishing to optimise productivity.
The online survey is a cost-effective and easy way to gain real insight and data from which to generate a bullet proof activity plan.
“But we only just surveyed our employees 12 months ago” you say. Employee surveys conducted more than 12 months ago are likely to now be meaningless. Markets have changed and you need to understand how the resulting insecurities have affected your employees so you can plan accordingly. Focussed insight will enable you to understand their worst fears and what it will take to win back their confidence and loyalty.
Act now, to re-engage with your workforce and find out what they are thinking. Call Tony Heywood on 02 8256 3999 or email tony@heywood.com.au for further information.
Tony Heywood is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney Australia with affiliates in Melbourne, Gold Coast, London, Singapore and Mumbai.
tony@heywood.com.au
www.heywood.com.au
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2 comments:
Very good article. I once worked as an HR Consultant in Diversity & Inclusion and we did a global employee survey. I'd actually like to do a similar survey for our Alumni as they are integral to our program's success.
Do you think employees give honest reasons for why they depart an employer? I say that because conventional wisdom teaches that we should be diplomatic when leaving a job because we never know when we'll need that employer for something again. So the problems is that people may not always be honest. So whoever does the exit interviews may not get the right information. And even still, that is one-sided information at best and subjective.
If an employee is leaving because of a negative reason, how can they be honest in the exit interview without being perceived as the problem?
I really think employers underestimate the financial impact of losing a key employee. ROI can't measure the intangibles that are lost. It usually isn't until after an employee has left when you see what their impact was.
Nice response, career coach. I think engagement is key and a lot of this comes down to marrying up the work available with the right type of employees to retain a consistent level of interest.
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