“Employees who are not engaged or who are actively disengaged cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report.”
Looking at marketing in particular, talent retention and access to expertise are big problems for many agencies and marketing departments (29% of those surveyed in the 2022 Marketing Report and 2023 Outlook by Mediaocean, an ad agency).
If talent retention and employees being disengaged (i.e. “quiet quitting”) are huge issues for marketing agencies, departments, and a wide range of organizations, what’s on the docket for 2023 to address these costly issues?
Use tech to help solve the issue
One great way to engage employees more is to use tech to engage them. After all, per the Pew Research Center, Millennials are the biggest percentage of the workforce and they are, for the most part, tech savvy and comfortable.
Great tools exist to help employers understand what their employees are thinking and feeling, such as MeetingPulse. (Full disclosure: they’re a client of mine, so I’m hyper-aware of their offerings.)
These tools allow employees to offer feedback anonymously, so they feel safe and empowered. HR can use these tools to create surveys, for example, asking how workers feel about their work situations, their opportunities for learning and development, and their managers.
As has been written numerous times, many workers leave their companies because of their direct managers. If issues with managers are surfaced quickly, through surveys and other employee-empowerment tools, they can be addressed. This might look like management courses, mentoring, or coaching.
The goal is to retain employees; tech tools can help asses, at the ground level, whether or not there’s a problem to be solved and where the issues are located.
Talent retention starts with recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding
Talent retention issues don’t start when the employee has worked for a while. They happen as a result of a breakdown in employee expectations from the very beginning of communications, such as job descriptions.
The best way to start addressing talent retention is to communicate what the job and culture of an organization is like, and the expectations there for everyone. When this is explained early – from job descriptions to interviews to the onboarding of new hires – it can help defray the disappointment later on that leads to disengagement.
If an organization has issues with retention, some of the first places to make adjustments are in these early phases of communication and interaction with new hires.
Coaching and mentoring for first-line managers
As mentioned above, employees don’t just leave organizations; they leave bad managers. Often, individual contributors who’ve exceled are promoted to management level positions that demand very different skills.
Training, coaching, and mentoring these new managers (and managers that have experienced high employee turnover). While it may seem, at first, that there isn’t budget available for this, a review of the high cost of turnover can highlight where funds are available and best spent.
Because disengaged employees are costing $7.8 trillion in lost productivity, as highlighted earlier, not to mention the costs of:
- Writing and posting job descriptions
- Interviewing job candidates
- Onboarding new hires
It makes sense to look for ways to defray these costs. Taking care of valuable employees, from when they are found through their valuable contributions to the organization, year after year, is well worth the time, effort, and expense.
Not sure where to begin to maximize your talent? Contact me and let’s talk.
