Your team’s performance is just average; they do just enough to get by. Customers don’t excite them. Their work doesn’t excite them. They have to be constantly watched. You are afraid to travel and leave them on their own. You catch them playing on the computer and hear talk of what other jobs are paying. Achieving performance and financial targets are a constant struggle. Sound familiar?
Today, employees change jobs every 18 months to 36 months. As you read this, more than half of your employees are job hunting, some actively, some passively. Statistics by the Gallup Organization indicate approximately 60 percent of your employees do just enough at work not to be fired; only 20 percent actually come to work committed to make a difference. By 2012, it is expected that the number of jobs will outnumber the available employees by close to 10 million. In the next five years, 20 percent of the largest corporations in the U.S. will lose 40 percent of their top talent to retirement. This creates a workplace that is poised for an all-out war for talent.
There are tough roads ahead, but not all is doom and gloom. These statistics mostly indicate employees perform at average levels because they are bored and unhappy at work. That makes this more of a management issue than an employee issue—which means it will take a change in management thinking and behavior to re-activate and re-ignite the fires of performance in today’s workforce.
When our workplace changed from the industrial age of making things to today’s intellectual age of providing service, it significantly changed what we want and need from our employees. In the past, we needed manpower and horsepower to run machinery and manufacture products. But as manufacturing moved offshore, we moved from horsepower to brainpower. Thinking and knowledge now drive results. A “one-size-fits-all” job no longer exists because not all employees think the same way.
Today, management must inspire and engage employees to ignite their passions and emotions; command-and-control is out. It is important to connect with employees to know and understand them, in order to help them perform at their best level. Management must relearn how to engage employees or be prepared for high turnover and a daily struggle for performance. Consider these five steps to fire up your employees and smoke your competition:
Create an employee-focused (workplace) culture. An employee-focused workplace culture openly appreciates, values and develops employees; therefore, it attracts and retains the best candidates. To create this culture, you must:
- Share your vision and goals with employees
- Implement a competent, talent-based hiring process
- Compensate employees fairly
- Offer achievable incentive plans
- Provide recurring skill and career development
- Create a culture of open participation and contribution
Employees get fired up working for an organization that is publicly focused on their value and their success.
