Heads up all CEOs: Workers are poised for a mass exodus next year, according to a poll of more than 1,400 workers in North America conducted by the research team at Right Management.
Employee discontent is sharply on the rise. Even with minor growth in the job market, the shift from current to new employers will be massive. In Connecticut alone that represents approximately $79 billion in non-farm salaried individuals shifting jobs, and during significant job changes an organization’s productivity can drop by as much as 34 percent, according to research presented by the Connecticut Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Our research found that 84 percent of the employees polled say they plan to look for new jobs in 2011, up from 60 percent reported in Right Management’s survey a year ago. Only 5 percent now say they intend to remain in their current position. Given the demographics in today’s workplace, it is most likely that many workers have been through at least one of the recent recessions and had a strong empirical understanding of what these conditions bring about. However, the jobless recovery, a lack of robust top line growth, and a recessionary period already double that of previous recessions is creating a new paradigm, and challenging previous experience with a downturn.
The current condition has caused opinion to swing from “it’s the economy” to “it’s the leadership.” There has been no shortage of stories in the news over the last three years that there is a huge disparity between executive pay, employee pay, and sensitivity to laid off employees.
The message of a stubborn recovery, continued belt-tightening and reduced budgets has been played and replayed many times over the last three years in the workplace. Change has been constant. That change has resulted in increased workloads and revised strategies, leading to decreased confidence in senior management’s ability to set appropriate corporate direction. These conditions have led to a growing mistrust of leadership, raising employee negativity and lowering productivity.
As the job market picks up many employees are going to take advantage of it and organizations stand to lose some of their top contributors. So the key question is can management do anything to improve employee engagement and loyalty?
Build Agility
While there at many drivers of effective employee engagement, certain workplace practices have greater impact on change effectiveness than others. Research we conducted (“Ready, Get Set … Change!” conducted in 2009) found that the top global drivers include:
1. Senior leaders need to be constantly involved and visible throughout the change effort;
2. Safe and healthy workplace;
3. Efficient work processes and people systems;
4. Fit-for-purpose structure;
5. Open and honest communication;
6. Employees empowered to make changes to the way things are done;
7. Teamwork between business units/departments;
8. Resources to do the job well;
9. Line managers have appropriate management skills.
In most instances, these important drivers for effective employee engagement are not being executed well. Global results revealed that less than one in two employees work in organizations where senior leaders are perceived to implement change effectively and only one in three people believe that the reasons for decisions are fully explained.
Change management needs to do more than create posters and e-mails. It needs to take into account the motivations, roles and capabilities at all levels of the organization — senior leaders, line managers and staff. Do you know why people come to work each day? It’s not typically because you have a great employee intranet or a great HR self-service portal. Many leaders have lost sight of why people come to work.
Effective strategy implementation and employee productivity means careful planning, involvement and facilitation of change. Change is not something that can be forced on an organization; people need to be drawn to it. Leaders often mistakenly assume that mandates to involve their workforce in change will yield the necessary results. Without a vision for the organization that (re)energizes your organization, change will be perceived as threatening, distracting, and disruptive to your organization. Effective change management isn’t a program; it is an everyday mantra that all employees share. It needs to be a value that is part of a larger strategic workforce management approach that focuses on improving customer intimacy and success of the business.
A Final Word of Advice
If the organization can only focus on one critical action in 2011, it should be to focus on aligning top performers, pivotal jobs and key opinion leaders with the direction of the business. Often times there is a lack of alignment between top-performers and individuals who are in pivotal jobs that help propel the business. Work on aligning these two critical variables.
As part of that strategy, seek out the key opinion leaders and have open and constructive discussions with them. Understand their motivations; align their self-interests with the success of the business. If you can help them align with the company goals, the rest of the organization will follow.
Finally leaders need to be honest and positive with employees. Don’t delegate this task to HR. Line leaders need to provide employees with informed feedback on what they are doing really well and ways to help them improve. An informed relationship between the leadership and employees will build mutual trust and hopefully limit future defections.
Joseph Johnson is practice leader — talent management for Right Management’s Northeast operations. Right Management is the talent and career management expert within Manpower. He can be reached at joe.johnson@right.com.
