A couple of weeks ago, Wayne Turmel spoke to Joyce Gioia, President of The Herman Group, for our last podcast of 2009, about the ways your organization can become an employer of choice in 21010 – and why, despite the recession, this matters. Knowing just how quickly most New Year's resolutions get forgotten, here's a reminder of her salient points.
1. Resolve to train all of your managers before you move them into supervisory positions. Doing so will cut your employee turnover and increase engagement substantially.
2. Commit to investing five to ten percent of gross receipts on training ¯ a major driver of retention. Your staff will appreciate it and so will your customers.
3. Make up your mind to invest time and effort in crafting an excellent onboarding program for new recruits --- one that starts with their first contact with the firm and ends at least at the end of the first year of employment.
4. Decide to begin now to provide a re-orientation (and onboarding) for all of your long-term employees. Think about how much has changed in the last ten years. Create a special re-orientation for your long-tenured people.
5. Resolve that this year you will smash the silos that reinforce fear and hostility in the organization by creating a culture of caring inclusion and mutual support. Replace your outdated authoritarian culture with one in which people know they matter.
6. Commit to becoming "green" and promoting your good corporate citizenship throughout the community and your industry. 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.
7. Choose this year to capitalize on the bonus that truly embracing diversity can provide. Understand that we have many types of diversity besides cultural and religious differences. Realize that every employee brings a unique set of gifts; your mission is to find them and encourage people to express themselves.
8. Make the decision that this year, you will develop and implement an effective employee suggestion program that rewards people for giving you their best ideas.
Great summary.
Just add one more point- Make Managers appreciate their role in managing staff motivation levels. Make every manager promise to spend its discretionery time with talent within its team and provide workplace interaction opportunities for enthusiastic team members stuck at lower levels of heirarchy.
An organization can become an employer of choice in 2010, by paying or compensating employees at market-competitive rates. The company of choice should lead by example by making a conscious decision to get out there and talk with people, inspire them and create a sense of excitement and adventure about their function or position with the company. It would also posses a fun or motivated environment to work in. Employees that love what they do and in a fun place to work, will deliver positive results. Therefore, if you hear people laughing, one should be thrilled because it generally means they are not stressed and are enjoying the workplace.