Need to Retain Employees Cited as Major Challenge
While employers are increasingly driven to find and keep the best employees, the pool of high-performing talent is shallower than ever, according to new research from the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). Seventy-two percent of companies rank the retention of talent as their fastest-growing issue in 2008, the research reveals.
The Human Resources (HR) agenda in 2008 has a heavy focus on the entire lifecycle of talent management, finds i4cp's study titled Taking the Pulse. This includes not only the retention, according to the research, but also the engagement, recruitment, and development of high-potential employees across all areas of an organization. In addition to the nearly three-quarters focused on retention, 70% of survey respondents say engaging top talent is growing in importance.
But a number of factors appear to be obstacles to success in these areas, For instance, 44% of respondents rate lack of time as having a high or very high impact on HR's ability to achieve its goals. In addition, nearly four in 10 respondents cite conflicting organizational priorities, scarcity of workforce talent, and financial resources as factors having a high or very high impact on the achievement of their goal to fill their employers' ranks with high-potential workers.
Additional factors are affecting the agenda of HR professionals, as well. For example, 75% say the availability of talent is having either a high or very high influence, 50% say so about the overall economic picture, and 51% point to competition as having a high or very high influence.
HR professionals recognize the need to develop competencies that are both broad and high-level, the study finds. Leadership is first among all competencies needing further development, with 55% of respondents ranking it as high or very high in importance. Furthermore, 50% rank change management as a high or very high priority, and 47% say so regarding innovative thinking.
Article courtesy of Kennedy Information Recruiting Trends providing leading edge insights and strategies for the recruiting professional
The most glaring problem is not being able to take advantage of the inherent creativity, innovation and productivity of existing employees due to the use of the top-down command and control model. Even if top executives don't make such an error, most middle and lower level managers and supervisors do use it.
Top-down by its nature demeans and disrespects employees. This model concentrates on ordering around employees with goals, targets, visions and a myriad of other orders. The employees' need to be heard, to be able to put in their two cents whenever they want to do so is ignored by top-down managers. In addition, employees know better than anyone what is going wrong and are frustrated in not being able to get these problems fixed.
So top-down demeans and disrespects employees leading them to treat their work, their customers, each other and their bosses with disrespect, even sometimes with hostility. Employees know by their actions that top-down managers don't care about them so why should they care about the work.
The answer is to stop sending down orders and start listening to employees and providing to them what they say they need to do a better job. The answer is to start providing the highest quality support to employees by asking employees how it can be improved.
After all, it is management's responsibility to provide to employees the highest quality training, tools, parts, material, discipline, procedures, policies, rules, direction, technical advice and documentation, etc, etc. Top-down management concentrates only on direction and provides very poor quality direction because the best people are self-directed and are not in need of orders, only high quality tools, material, parts and the like so that the employee can do the work to a high standard of quality.
Without being treated with great support, meaning great respect, employees will not commit themselves to their work or to the success of their company. Change that and you will be stunned by the huge amount of inherent creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation and commitment you have unleashed. I have done this several times and was stunned each time.
Best regards, Ben
Author "Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed"