Or better yet, how much cost do you think you will save if the same star performer never left your team in the first place. Maybe cost is the wrong word, but that also factors in. Let’s use the word “value”.
How much value will you continue to add to the business and to the team if this person never leaves. Turns out, there’s no yardstick for measuring that, it is as qualitative as it gets. But there are measurements for employee engagement and for attrition, retention, absenteeism and so on.
People analytics as a discipline has been turning heads these past few years. Suddenly we have tons of data, both hard and soft, from in person and social profiles that tell us when an employee is Red/ Amber/ Green, or if they are bored, borderline disengaged (means they can be wooed back), actively disengaged and so on. it’s a science and more often than not the Human Resources function isn’t able to actively implement what they deduce to be the solution to these live employee case studies, because employee emotions are a fluid thing. They don’t stay as hard as data and are constantly evolving, forming and re- forming.
What can you do?
Ensure a culture of air cover
It’s never all of a sudden that an employee decides to leave. It’s a gradual process. Complement the Early Warning System that you have in place. Initiate candid and closed room conversations with Amber employees. Provide them with enough safety to talk about what seems to be bothering them. Many times, all they need is a mentor to see them through their internal discussions and assumptions. As part of Project Aristotle, Google spent 2 years trying to decode what makes or breaks a team. And what they came up with had very little to do with hard numbers, but more to do with unsaid behaviours and norms in the team that magnified collective intelligence and collective responsibility. All of that happens when there is sufficient air cover to not feel judged. Yes. Feel.
Change with the times
Processes and policies need to be employee friendly, reasonable and of course reflecting the ethos of the organisation. But they also need to be relevant. 2017 was the year of continuous performance management. The shift was towards real time feedback and regular checkins, spearheaded by Deloitte. 2018 has moved into the implementation of the same with all the learnings of 2017. All of this is driven by “employee experience” of 2017. The point- keep it relevant. Global giants such as General Electric and Microsoft have completely stripped annual appraisals, ratings, calibration meetings and competency assessments, focusing instead on regular, quality performance conversations and feedback. Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital trends found that 96% of companies who have done this say their processes are now simpler and 83% say the quality of conversations between employees and managers are far far better.
Let some people go
Now this may sound counter- intuitive. A survey conducted by Nintex claims that 53% of employees do ‘not’ expect to stay at their companies beyond a tenure of five years. Another survey by Gallup determines that six in 10 millennials are prone to the concept of ‘job-hopping’. In order to let new thoughts enter the workspace, sometimes it is best to let some go. When faced with a decision of either continuing with the same person or letting someone new in, weigh the pros and cons basis what the organisation wants to be in the next 3- 5 years.
All of these are a part of your employer brand. This is what makes your organisation appealing to those seeking a role with you. With changing times, branding your organisation to employees and customers is a matter of thought leadership.
Can you think as far as the next milestone or can you think in spite of the next milestone?