Protecting your most valuable asset(s)...

Why do employees leave companies? It may come as a surprise, however compensation is not the most sited reason for leaving an organization. The complexities of human behavior are vast and often unpredictable, as each person has evolved their unique character based upon a combination of inherited genetics coupled with environmental and educational experiences. Additionally, human behavior is not a destination and instead is a persistent continuum that is modified based upon age, experience, culture, and the list goes on and on...as any military commander will tell you, hitting a moving target is much harder than hitting a motionless one. Let's explore how we can navigate the importance of securing your most important asset(s)...the customer facing individuals that really control the success of your business.

Companies will often take the approach similar to, "...we have to create a culture of excellence and support that make company ABC the best place to work..." This statement is misguided for several reasons; the term "create" assumes a destination, not an evolving living thing; the terms "excellence" & "support" are subjective and can be defined in any number of ways; the phrase, "best place to work" implies that employees are arriving somewhere to do something that they may or may not want to do for an extended duration of time. So how should we modify this statement to begin the journey of effective people management?

Let's try this, "...company ABC will work with you to evolve and improve a culture of engagement and satisfaction that will be visible to our clients and customers which will result in a level of competitive excellence beyond everyone's expectations..." This approach is based upon the foundation of a team culture with everyone's participation crucial to the overall success of the organization. When employees feel good about themselves and attain a sense of belonging, the term "work" is no longer relevant. Now individuals will arrive at their company ready to support the objectives of the organization because they helped create these objectives so they are in fact helping themselves.

So how do we accomplish this in practical strategy...it takes time, energy, and an often difficult to quantify investment by the company to learn more about the people they ask to join and/or existing team members that have a lot to contribute. Strategy sessions, surveys, focus groups, et al collectively become necessary to identify where an organization is today and where this company needs to be tomorrow. Then the organization needs to embrace this repetitive process to build a culture of change as what was important to your team yesterday, may have changed and the organization must be nimble enough to pivot. Case in point, the advent of Artificial Intelligence will disrupt companies today and tomorrow. The scary version, no one truly knows where this is going, and consequently there exists a new level of uncertainty in society that companies should not ignore and have open dialogue with members of the organization. The intent is not to resolve their fear in real time, and instead to better understand the fear, so that the company is prepared to address and evolve their internal cultural systems in accordance with this new dynamic.

Let's keep talking as the topic of people management will increasingly grow in complexity as dwindling talent pools and unavailable compensation solutions become increasingly prevalent. tomharperconsulting.com