Talent proofing for 2024: improve the employee engagement now
The Great New Year Flight
The time to talent-proof your business for 2024 is now.
Yes, January is just another date. The start of another year. Happens every, well, 12 months. True. But it’s also the time when many of us have had time to reflect, take stock, and think about what we really want. And sometimes, that’s a new job.
Just ask the recruiters. January sees a spike in online job applications, according to Glassdoor.com. In France, there’s a 29% increase in people brushing up their CVs and setting out the experience and training they’ve gained in your organisation.
In the UK, one in five UK employees are planning job moves in the next six months, according to accounting firm PwC. The reasons? Better job satisfaction and more pay.
There are many reasons people want to move on. Life circumstances, career development, the pull of a role that really ticks some personal boxes. But if people’s heads are being turned simply because they’re disengaged and unhappy – then that’s not sustainable in today’s world of people-centred workplaces where the employee engagement counts. It’s a blow to employee morale and productivity, for a start.
If people don’t want to work in your organisation, isn’t it better that they just leave? Who wants an unhappy employee, switched off instead of energised, working under sufferance instead of striving for collective success? Well, occasionally, a farewell might be the best answer. But as a strategy it’s far better for everyone and for the organisation to get everyone pulling together and doing their best work.
A great employee engagement takes time and money. And yet, skimping on that investment is a false economy.
The average cost of replacing an employee in the UK ranges from £14,800 to £22,200. Those figures are based on a proportion of average UK income. The true cost is likely to be far higher for many roles that involve time investment in recruitment processes, onboarding, getting new team members up to speed – and keeping clients assured of a seamless transition.
Talent proofing isn’t a quick fix
We’ll spare you tortured analogies about leaks and pipes and sticking plasters. But talent proofing isn’t something to slot in as an emergency measure. If not already, it needs to be part of your organisation’s DNA.
Employee engagement is a year-round challenge. A fabulous festive party in December can be a great reward, but the memory of those jingle bells may ring hollow in the new year if people are not happy with the normal run of things at work.
So start the year by setting out your stall for employees. Find out what they think. Let them know you’re interested. And make clear that their engagement and enthusiasm are the oil in your organisation’s lamp – and you want to keep it flowing.
Internal communications and employee engagement colleagues have a big part to play in this. They’ll have the ideas, the means and the tools to get things rolling.
The role of IC in talent retention
What can we do about it? How can internal communicators help to make people think again about fleeing to pastures new? Or even reduce the chances that they’ll think that way in the first place?
There’s a lot we can do. And it starts with keeping pace with the changes most of us have seen in the workplace over the past couple of years. Now we’ve (mostly) settled back into a groove – what does that groove look like? What’s changed? What’s still the same?
Management consulting firm, Korn Ferry zooms in on some of the disruptions we’ve seen in the workplace – wherever that workplace now happens to be – and suggests employers have a job to do in similarly revolutionising the way they approach staff retention and acquisition.
One of the key trends that will define the talent market in 2023 is a focus on developing the current workforce. Training, certification and reskilling can not only keep employees motivated, but also give them ways to move into other parts of the organisation, instead of looking elsewhere for a fresh opportunity.
And would your jaw drop in amazement if we said hybrid working and flexible hours were among the trends continuing to top the talent management tables? As Korn Ferry puts it, ‘we’re migrating from work-life imbalance to work-life integration’.
Time for evolved offers
Three-quarters of organisations now allow hybrid working arrangements, says CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development). Some are informal set-ups, while others are formal policies. More than half have a minimum number of days each week that employees should show their faces in the real-life office – usually two or three days. Some give employees a completely free choice over whether they work from the home office or the office-office.
Many jobs, of course, don’t have the scope for working at home. And no doubt many employers will struggle to adjust to the idea of employees not being on the premises every day.
But the freedom of hybrid working is a hot draw for workers, says professional services company FDM, citing a study showing 76% of UK job-seekers want flexibility more than any other ‘perk’ of a job. So, make time to fully explore what’s possible for your organisation. If nothing else, remember that people talk – and insisting on having everyone in the office five days a week when they can work well at home just might present a somewhat outdated image for your organisation.
Could your people be thinking that you have an outdated image already? There’s never a bad time to run an in-house survey about the employee engagement. One that asks the right questions.
Ask the questions that matter
People don’t need to be disgruntled to want to leave their jobs. Often, it’s a pull rather than a push. So, what does this other employer have that you don’t?
Gartner suggests not relying on the big-ticket questions like ‘Do you receive enough recognition?’ or ‘Does your manager care about you as a person?’ To really get a grip on the employee engagement, Gartner says it’s essential to test three drivers:
Organisational trust – do people feel valued? How well do they believe the organisation protects their wellbeing? People with high levels of trust in their employer also tend to be highly productive.
Commitment to coworkers – can employees collaborate effectively? Do they help each other do their best work? Are they supportive and appreciative?
The right capabilities – do people know how to get hold of the information and tools they need during times of change? Do they know what’s expected of them? Do they understand the organisation’s strategy and goals?
Ask your IC and EE experts to craft the questions that will put those drivers under the spotlight – and tease out answers that will be truly meaningful to your organisation.
Is there a feedback loop?
Once the big survey’s done, keep the feedback momentum going. We’re not suggesting a Big Brother approach to monitoring your people. Consider getting a constant flow of feedback – and anonymously, so people are more inclined to answer honestly. Ask them regularly, even weekly, but be sure to ask the right things. Start by thinking about what it is you want to find out.
TinyPulse offers tried-and-tested questions to get people thinking and talking about the issues that can really add iron to your engagement and retention strategies. If it’s about engagement, ask people to rate how engaged they feel on a scale of 1 to 10. Would they switch jobs for more money?
If it’s about employee satisfaction, ask if they’d persuade a friend to apply for a job at the same place – or ask what would prevent them doing so.
Are you offering an optimal employee engagement in 2023?
There may be nothing wrong, per se, with your employees’ experience. But is it the best they can expect – and unlikely to be bettered elsewhere?
Imagine yourself in a New Year lunchtime meet-up between a group of friends. One of them, Linda, has a spring in her step – she has a new job and word has spread about how fabulous it is. It’s not more money or a move up the career ladder. So what is it? What makes others go ‘ooh!’ and ask if there are any vacancies?
The trinkets: Okay, let’s start with those sparkly little gems that Linda can drop into a catch-up over coffee – free gym membership, lunch allowance, ‘bring your dog to work’ days. All very nice. But what’s beneath the initial twinkle once the everyday work and deadlines kick in?
The décor: Wonderful workspaces in great settings. If anyone from H&H is at lunch with Linda, for instance, they’ll see her city-centre funky loft office and raise her an 18th-century country mansion. One where peacocks stroll on the lawn and the interiors fuse Georgian elegance with Metaverse-primed hybrid-working spaces. There’s no one way to get the workspace right, but when people spend an awful lot of time there, it’s vital to make it appealing and inspiring.
The girders: Less fun over lunch. Not so much Insta-glitz for Linda’s feed. But without the solid, robust, reliable structure of a great workplace, the rest is mere baubles. The girders are the people strategies. The communication. The engagement programmes. The wellbeing focus and the development opportunities. We don’t always see the girders – but we’ll sure as heck notice if they’re not there. Or if they’re broken.
Ask Linda over lunch next New Year how the job’s going, and it’s the quality of the girders that will shape her response. This is where your colleagues in employee engagement and internal communications can make sure your talent foundations are as strong as they can be.
COMMUNICATION, ENGAGEMENT AND CULTURE
Great communication with your people won’t guarantee they’ll stay forever, but it will certainly help them to stay connected with everything you’re doing. Slack, with a clear interest in keeping colleagues connected, serves up four top reasons why internal communication boosts engagement…
1. People understand the organisation’s mission and their contribution to it.
2. They come to work ready to do their best work and help others to succeed.
3. They stay with the organisation longer and want to develop and progress.
4. They go the extra mile for customers, boosting the customer experience.
When we carry out internal communication audits for clients, it’s always a joy to see the basics firmly in place. Because that means it’s an organisation that really gets it – it understands the value of putting its connection with its people on a formal and strategic footing. Communications schedule? Check. Rewards and benefits info easy to find and frequently accessed? Check. Performance calendar up to date, with everyone aware of where they fit in to it? Absolutely.
The same goes for the employee engagement. If the people are your engine, what will help to keep them in tip-top condition? A wellbeing programme? Paid time away from work to volunteer for local causes? A little flex in the diary to make way for side hustles that keep that sparkle in their eyes? And the big one – opportunities for growth, progression, for feeling that what they do each day truly matters?
These are all factors that will shape an employee’s feelings about the organisation and make a big difference when talent-proofing for the future. And back to Linda, over lunch – they’re the things that will come to mind when someone asks her: ‘Yes, but what’s the culture like?’
Living and breathing your culture
Comms and engagement are clear ways to demonstrate the culture of an organisation. And they’re also facets of that culture – two of the proof points.
When you communicate with your people – or don’t – you’re putting your values on display. You’re role-modelling the attitudes and behaviours that define the organisation’s culture. Your efforts to engage your people set the standard you can expect back from them.
This is grass-roots stuff. But it takes determination to keep a focus on internal communication and employee engagement, especially in the face of ever-evolving challenges in a fast-moving world. To make sure nothing falls by the wayside when protecting your investment in people, it’s essential to have a strategy.
You’ve gotta have a plan
If you’re serious about talent-proofing you need to put it on a strategic footing. And of FDM’s top five strategic priorities for workforce planning, improving employee engagement is number one. No surprise, there.
Next comes effective leadership and management, which has a pivotal role in employee engagement and communication. After that is the need to manage change through organisational design – bearing in mind the most successful transformations are those that put communication at their core, and truly involve employees in the process.
Two further priorities are refining your recruitment strategy, and planning for the future of your workforce. Once again, both of these need the power of two-way communication and genuine employee insights in order to work. Where are the skills gaps and pressure points? What’s working? What isn’t? What can be improved? And what is it that keeps people inspired and enthused?
That brings us to the last thing on our list – the EVP.
WHAT’S YOUR EVP?
Why should your carefully nurtured talent stick with you? The answer is in your Employee Value Proposition – or Employer Value Proposition, as it’s also known.
We like this little nutshell definition of an EVP from the Academy to Innovate Human Resources (AIHR):
‘An Employee Value Proposition is the promise you make as an employer to your employees in return for their commitment. This promise entails the sum of all the benefits and rewards employees receive from the organisation they work for.’
Everything we’ve talked about here comes into an EVP. It’s not just the pay and the perks. It’s more than the culture and the career prospects, the workplace and the flexi-hours. It’s a comprehensive pledge of everything an employee can expect – including the peace of mind for them that this job is for the long haul, should they want it to be.
Just as your employer brand shows the outside world who you are, the EVP shows your people who you are.
It’s a big investment, and one that needs ongoing support from your employee engagement and internal comms colleagues. Because for an EVP to have power, your people need to be familiar with it, and engaged with it.
Talent-proofing starts now
Few people stay in the same job for their whole career. The very nature of an organisation full of dynamic, ambitious, motivated people means those brilliant employees will seek new adventures and fresh pastures or keep their hearts beating with a whole change of direction.
That’s business. That’s people.
But when it’s a ‘push’ rather than a ‘pull’ prompting them to leave, that tells us something isn’t working as well as it could. And ultimately, that’s harmful to the organisation. Not just in terms of the cost, upheaval and morale hit of replacing employees, but in the organisation having a structural weakness – one that’s stopping it keeping hold of the best talent.
It’s a long game instead of a quick fix. So, start talent-proofing now, with support and inspiration from your employee engagement and internal comms teams – and give yourself the best chance of starting next year with people who are driven to meet your goals.
If you want to bolster your employee engagement, work on an EVP or simply have some ideas you want to run past us, say ‘hi’ by getting in touch at talktous@handhcomms.co.uk. What have you got to lose?
Insights and Resources
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