Is it something you've done or haven't done?

Take a look around your office. A third of the people you see, think a new employer is the best thing 2012 could bring. This year's annual What's Working study just released by Mercer, a global HR advisory firm, might be more aptly named What's Not Working. It reports that almost a third of U.S. employees are seriously eyeing the exit. And the survey found that more than half of senior managers are among them.

If your hope is to replace retiring boomers on your staff with some of your up and comers, thinks again. More than 40 percent of employees 34 and younger are tweaking their resumes, too.

Who's leaving and why

At the depth of the recession, employees were grateful just to have a job. Tired of having to do more with fewer resources, suffering through salary freezes, watching layoffs, while worrying about their own fate, employees have drawn their line in the sand. The stress has taken its toll. Despite economic uncertainties, employees are now driven and confident enough to make a move.

The cost of losing a trusted employee is estimated at between 75 percent and 200 percent of an employee's annual salary. That's not including the drain on organizational memory or the cost of customers and co-workers that may follow them.

Are larger companies at higher risk to lose their talent?

Surveys say, Yes!

Smaller companies actually have a better chance at keeping employees because by nature their size, top management is more closely involved with employees and projects. This proximity has a better chance of producing the number one answer to how to keep your best and brightest...

Engagement, according to Mercer is something it calls the Holy Grail of the 21^st century management. An engaged employee, according to Mercer, is one who feels a vested interest in the company's success and is motivated to exceed their job requirements.

The 2011 study points to 13 factors that influence engagement (listed in order of importance):

1.      Being treated with respect

2.      Having a work-life balance

3.      Quality of organizational leadership

4.      Working in an environment where they can provide good services to others

5.      The type of work

6.      The quality of people employees work with

7.      Benefits

8.      Base pay

9.      Long-term career potential

10.  Having flexible work arrangements

11.  Learning and development opportunities

12.  Opportunities for promotion

13.  Incentive pay and bonuses

Why engagement matters

Mercer and other HR experts have shown that the effects of an engaged workforce go far beyond employee retention. Employee engagement translates into these benefits.

·         Increased productivity

·         Greater levels of innovation

·         Improved service quality

·         Higher customer satisfaction

·         Reduced absenteeism

·         Lower health care costs

·         The ability to attract talent

·         Increased competition

·         Higher shareholder value

While employee preferences and motivating factors differ across industry and location, Mercer found the following four factors consistently have the highest impact on engagement:

The work itself. In particular, employees need to understand how their individual contribution fits into the larger scheme of things.

Confidence and trust in leadership. Managers should act on a way that's visible and transparent.

Recognition and rewards. Most importantly these should be internally fair and externally competitive.

Organizational communication. It should flow smoothly up, down and laterally throughout the organization. Managers should recognize that not everyone communicates in the same way.

Interestingly, other research shows that merely paying attention to what employees have to say - through surveys, focus groups and active listening - can have a marked impact on engagement. The engagement level changes when employees feel heard, even without any real change in organizational behavior.

People want to feel that they matter. They want to have some say in where, what, when and how they work. Work accounts for the largest chunk of time they'll spend during their entire lives. They want to be treated like thinking adults. And increasingly, if they don't get what they want, they'll find it elsewhere.

So is engagement in any of these forms something you do, or don't do?

Let's agree that hairy spiders, venomous snakes, small spaces, really high places and clown faces are a given. Okay, maybe my given.

     What about business scares you? For years, employers told me their biggest fear was hiring the wrong person. That wrong hire could lead to headaches and pettiness at best and damaged customer relations and lost revenues at worst.  After that the process to develop a paper trail to get rid of them without repercussions. And finally, the painful decision to begin a new search. That's what employers used to say.

     Now, according to an online survey by Diversi Corp called The Business Sounding Board, fears about a wrong hire moved into the number 4 spot.

     What is the number one fear of small business owners today?

17% of respondents named lack of revenue or sales.

11% named lack of adequate financing.

6% named healthcare costs and employee benefits.

4% named lack of qualified employees/candidates.

2% named lack of equity capital.

     Small business owners have always kept a watchful eye on the bottom line. And small businesses always worried about slow cash flow and difficult collections. Those worries centered on getting paid and getting paid in a timely manner.  

These last few years have moved us from collecting the cash to creating the revenues. So we hunker down and hold our cash close...we keep pursuing sales...we spend thriftily...we look for value...we look within ourselves and to trusted colleagues for the answers.

     If your resource pool isn't as deep as you need for this economy, if you need advice, direction or solid referrals for any area of your company, from marketing to equity partners, or if you're short on colleagues because it's just you, consider contacting SCORE.

SCORE is a nationwide, non-profit organization dedicated to helping the owners of existing and start-up businesses assure that their businesses grown and prosper. They offer one-on-one mentoring at no cost and provide a variety of Workshops and Webinars on topics of timely interest. This is mentoring your money can't buy! 

www.scorefoxvalley.org

Visit (http://www.act.org/certificate/) to get more information or you can contact Barb Tartaglione (Dupage Workforce Board) at 630-955-2082.

Wait.... think "outside" the box, right? 

WELCOME TO THE HIRE SOLUTION

The business of recruiting, testing and hiring qualified personnel becomes increasingly time consuming and cost prohibitive as companies change the way they do business.

THE HIRE SOLUTION offers new and alternative ways to manage your company’s staffing process.

THE HIRE SOLUTION  will help you improve your productivity and lower your costs.  We will work with you to design a program that meets your needs and allows you to manage your employment process more effectively.