Keys To Retaining Top Talent: COVID-19 ‘Great Resignation’ Edition
▼The Leadership Series▼
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Regardless of tenure, position, title, etc., employees who voluntarily leave, generally do so out of some type of perceived disconnect with leadership.
There is an old saying...“Employees don’t quit working for companies, they quit working for their bosses.”
When examining the talent at any organization look at the culture, not the rhetoric – look at the results, not the commentary about potential. Despite some of the delusional perspective in the corner office...employees who are challenged, engaged, valued, and rewarded (emotionally, intellectually & financially) rarely leave, and more importantly, they perform at very high levels. However if you miss any of these critical areas, it’s only a matter of time until they head for the elevator. Following are 10 reasons your talent will leave you – smart leaders don’t make these mistakes:
You Failed To Unleash Their Passions: Smart companies align employee passions with corporate pursuits. Human nature makes it very difficult to walk away from areas of passion. Fail to understand this and you’ll unknowingly be encouraging employees to seek their passions elsewhere.
You Failed To Challenge Them, Intellectually: Smart people don’t like to live in a dimly lit world of boredom. If you don’t challenge people’s minds, they’ll leave you for someone/someplace that will.
You Failed To Engage Their Creativity: Great talent is wired to improve, enhance, and add value. They are built to change and innovate. They NEED to contribute by putting their fingerprints on design. Smart leaders don’t place people in boxes – they free them from boxes. What’s the use in having a racehorse if you don’t let them run?
You Failed To Develop Their Skills: Leadership isn’t a destination – it’s a continuum. No matter how smart or talented a person is, there’s always room for growth, development, and continued maturation. If you place restrictions on a person’s ability to grow, they’ll leave you for someone who won’t.
You Failed To Give Them A Voice: Talented people have good thoughts, ideas, insights, and observations. If you don’t listen to them, I can guarantee you someone else will.
You Failed To Care: Sure, people come to work for a paycheck, but that’s not the only reason. In fact, many studies show it’s not even the most important reason. If you fail to care about people at a human level, at an emotional level, they’ll eventually leave you regardless of how much you pay them.
You Failed to Lead: Businesses don’t fail, products don’t fail, projects don’t fail, and teams don’t fail – leaders fail. The best testament to the value of leadership is what happens in its absence – very little. If you fail to lead, your talent will seek leadership elsewhere.
You Failed To Recognize Their Contributions: The best leaders don’t take credit – they give it. Failing to recognize the contributions of others is not only arrogant and disingenuous, but it’s as also just as good as asking them to leave.
You Failed To Increase Their Responsibility: You cannot confine talent – try to do so and you’ll either devolve into mediocrity, or force your talent [to] seek more fertile ground. People will gladly accept a huge workload as long as an increase in responsibility comes along with the performance and execution of said workload.
You Failed To Keep Your Commitments: Promises made are worthless, but promises kept are invaluable. If you break trust with those you lead you will pay a very steep price. Leaders not accountable to their people, will eventually be held accountable by their people.
If leaders spent less time trying to retain people, and more time trying to understand them, care for them, invest in them, and lead them well, the retention thing would take care of itself.
#iTHiNKLabs Insight: On ‘The Great Resignation’
In 2021, a low level Chinese northerner and mentee who had quit her job (against my advice) during the country's even stricter 2020 lockdown suddenly lost all her savings caring for her parents and mentally handicapped brother.
None of them had COVID-19. But all of them were admitted to hospital over a 6 month period.
Yet, she managed to land a job within a week of returning to her adopted city. And that job, although low-paying but higher than her previous, offered her the choice of a modest apartment allowance, or what Chinese call “farm house” (or poor people's apartment), closer to her new workplace.
For New Yorkers, that's the equivalent of someone who already lives in Mount Vernon being offered a subsidized apartment off the Grand Concourse or Fordham. Because, every little helps.
Yet, most American companies aren't even willing to think that far, let alone bother engaging with even 'essential workers' or mid-level let alone top talent to explore ways to meet them halfway during the hiring process. And the country suffers, losing top talent live the American dream in Canada, and elsewhere, as a result of inflexibility, short-term pragmatism, and lack of imagination that includes offering 'tuition assistance' or not much else.
The topic was the so-called 'Great Resignation' (many people leaving their jobs in droves), why there are so many unfilled jobs yet companies unable to find talent.
Predictably, she failed to coherently and cogently answer the question. After all, if I wanted to understand why desperate migrants from Afghanistan, Syria or Africa left their respective countries, I wouldn't assume the Taliban, Bashar al-Assad, or ruthless African dictators were qualified experts on the issue.
Yet, that's how most unimaginative and rigid American journalists rationalize. So, disappointed, I waited about 3 days, then asked my relative: Do you remember that CNN interview about companies struggling to retain or find talent? Do you remember the expert's answer?
Basically, my relative perfectly remembered the interview. But similarly, whatever the 'expert' HR guest was saying didn't stick either. Just as Wired Magazine's own The Great Resignation Misses the Point, missed the point too.
Also, an American CMO's 'great resignation' is, #iTHiNKLabs would argue, less instructive than an exhaustive survey of lower-income Americans, like the Chinese mentee above whose new employer invested in her even before onboarding. A move that has made her less willing to quit despite several interviews she's had since joining the company and even swearing at one point she “saw them interviewing someone to replace [her]” at a time when they had openly doubted she was culturally a good fit.
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Harvard Business Review: How To Retain Your Top Talent » » Click Here « «
▼ Brain-Dead Hiring Practices To Ditch ▼
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