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Embracing the Recovery to Become an Employer of Choice
January 22, 2010
By Joyce Gioia
Your leadership has professed a desire to be an Employer of Choice. As a training professional, you may not feel like you can play much of a role in this transition. However, this article will give you a road map for how you can support this transformation.
Even with near-record unemployment, 2010 will greet employers with a host of challenges. Recruiting, retaining, and engaging top talent will become much more difficult. Despite the global recession and rapidly rising unemployment levels, research shows employers already are facing a scarcity of skilled talent; as futurists, we forecast a worldwide increase in voluntary turnover at companies. To stop the unprecedented churning that is coming, companies need to resolve to take proactive steps now to ensure they will have the talent they need to compete.
As a recent issue of the Herman Trend Alert pointed out, the 2009 Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations (EDGE) Report reveals nearly half (47 percent) of managers surveyed cited "a shortage of qualified applicants" as their top hiring challenge, with their time-to-fill a vacancy averaging 4.5 to 14.4 weeks. At the same time, 55 percent of employees plan to change "jobs, careers, or industries" when the economy recovers.
Eight Strategies for a Successful 2010
Wise employers will heed this warning and take steps now to engage their valued employees and avoid this unwanted turnover. Here are eight strategies your company would do well to adopt for 2010 to keep it profitable in the face of these challenges. Not surprisingly, training professionals will have an important part to play.
Resolve to train all of your leaders before you move them into supervisory positions. There is an epidemic in corporate America of "supervision by anointment." Companies mistakenly believe they can choose the new supervisor, sprinkle fairy dust over the person, and instantly, have a trained leader. Unfortunately, this lack of training causes suffering all around: the individual feels ill-prepared, and because he/she truly is, the people reporting to the new supervisor do not feel taken care of, and the company often loses because people leave. When organizations train people before moving them into new positions, everybody wins: levels of engagement increase, employee turnover is avoided, and productivity goes up.
Commit to investing five to ten percent of gross receipts on training—a major driver of retention. Around the globe, when you ask people what they are looking for in an employer, invariably they answer three things. Often at the top of their list is training and development. People want to be better tomorrow than they are today. A significant investment in training is one of the initiatives we look for when evaluating whether an organization is an Employer of Choice. When companies invest in their people at these levels, everybody and everything benefits—even your customers…and especially the bottom line.
Invest time and effort in crafting an excellent onboarding program for new recruits. Contrary to popular belief, onboarding does not begin on the first day of employment; it actually begins with their first contact with your organization and it ends a lot later than most think as well—at least at the end of the first year of employment. This onboarding period is your opportunity to bond with suspects, prospects, and candidates, to really connect them to the organization.
Begin now to provide a re-orientation (and onboarding) for all your long-term employees. Your organization may believe it is safe from turnover among long-tenured employees. However, those senior, often highly trained, employees are vulnerable to being poached. Suggest that your organization create a special re-orientation for your long-tenured people. When you think about how much has changed in the last ten years, it just makes sense.
Help your company smash "the departmental silos" that reinforce fear and hostility. Instead resolve to help them create a culture of caring inclusion and mutual support. Some of the tactics that work are team building with diverse departments and a job shadowing program between departments. Replace your outdated authoritarian culture with one in which people know they matter.
Commit to becoming "green" and promoting your good corporate citizenship throughout the community and your industry. Help your organization be the leader in your industry that other organizations seek to follow. People want to work with companies that "make a difference" for the environment and the community.
Embrace diversity and capitalize on the bonus it provides. Diversity training has been around a long time. But when we think about diversity, we most often think about cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity. In fact, we have many types of diversity—including age, sex, body type, personality type, and much more. Every employee brings a unique set of gifts; when people express those gifts, they benefit themselves, their departments, and the whole company.
Develop and implement an effective employee suggestion program. Typically, an Employer of Choice is open to employees' ideas for improvement. The organization should demonstrate it values its workers by rewarding them for submitting their best ideas. The most engaging and profitable companies are those which mine the collective intelligence of their employee populations.
Taking the Next Step: Becoming an Employer of Choice
Though simply adopting these suggestions will not ensure recognition, organizations that implement these ideas will be well on their way to becoming Employers of Choice—distinctions earned only by companies whose leadership, culture, and best practices attract, optimize, and hold top talent. Employers of Choice enjoy a higher level of performance, greater workforce stability, and the level of continuity that assures preservation of the knowledge base, customer loyalty, employee satisfaction, and stronger profits.
Employer of Choice is a registered certification mark of Employer of Choice, Inc. For more information about the award, visit www.EmployerOfChoice.com
Joyce Gioia, a workforce futurist and CEO of Employer of Choice, Inc., is the author of five business books, including two business bestsellers. Gioia is available for seminars, workshops, and keynote presentations, and can be reached directly at 336.282.2019 or joyce@hermangroup.com
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