Is your organization ready for the day when opportunities in the external job market become more plentiful and your top talent is tempted with other offers of employment? Here are six best practices that your organization will want to consider perfecting. Uncovered by APQC's Collaborative Benchmarking research, these techniques have proven successful for organizations that excel at engaging and retaining employees.
1. Give line managers ultimate responsibility--HR should serve as a key facilitator of employee engagement within the organization and provide centralized tools, templates, and processes. Senior leadership’s responsibility is to provide executive championship and act as role models. But the ultimate responsibility for employee engagement should reside with front-line supervisors and managers.
2. Collect feedback in multiple ways--Allow employees to express feedback in their own ways using innovative methods that go beyond standard employee satisfaction or opinion surveys. The exact mechanisms used are less important than giving employees a range of choices from which to select their preferred modes of communication.
3. Customize talent management practices for key employees--It is not just external customers who are increasingly more sophisticated, knowledgeable, and demanding of individualized service. Internal customers—employees—are also looking for individualized treatment, seeking a self-determined, customized approach to their careers. Work to understand the preferences of highly valued individuals and groups and tailor talent management efforts accordingly.
4. Use new technologies to facilitate collaboration--Employees want to feel connected to their colleagues and the organization for which they work. Use virtual collaboration and social media to bring employees together regardless of physical distance. Use social networking to involve customers in important decisions, leverage existing discussion groups, and develop new communities of practice.
5. Offer development opportunities for all--Invest heavily in leadership development, both to immerse current and potential leaders in new experiences and challenges and to teach these individuals about the important role they play in motivating their staffs. Engage employees below the leadership level by providing opportunities for training, development, and career planning. Offer a combination of formalized on-the-job training, structured job rotations, effective mentoring programs, and e-learning.
6. Encourage work/life balance--Make a sincere effort to support employees’ personal and family lives. Take a comprehensive view of work/life balance, a view that goes beyond offering standard flex time and work-from-home policies to offer a range of options including health and safety programs, work-at-home policies and practices, fitness benefits, support for dual-career families, and sabbaticals. No matter how fulfilling the work, engagement is jeopardized when one’s job and personal commitments regularly conflict.
What are your organization's best practices for engaging and retaining employees?
These and other best practice are part of the report: Rewarding, Engaging, and Retaining Key Talent, APQC. 2010.
