The Importance of Employee Engagement

Everyone is talking about the War for Talent. If you are a C-Suite leader, it is highly likely that your top priority has been the same for the past decade: find and retain Top Talent.

The “finding” of Top Talent has become increasingly difficult and the “retaining” of talent has become a Human Decathlon event. If you had a well-defined culture pre-pandemic, how is it going 18 months into a largely work-from-home environment? Have the people leaders in your organization adapted and embraced the challenges and opportunities in your organization?

Based on current research, if your people leaders are not honing their leadership skills and addressing psychological safety for team members, get ready for more turnover in the near future.

According to the 2021 People Management Report original research study done by The Predictive Index®, 48% of employees have thought about changing CAREERS in the last 12 months. 

What can we do right now that helps us FIND and RETAIN Top Talent?

Leadership has never been more important. If you are a people leader, do you lead by example? Are you enthusiastically engaging at every level and supporting your team? Do you have a cadence of team meetings, 1:1 meetings, recognition events / communications, strategy sessions, and more? Especially if your team is mostly work-from-home, studies show that employees are mostly missing individual recognition and an understanding of their organization’s strategy. They feel disconnected.

How do we get our arms around these challenges?

  • Get data. Survey your team or have a facilitator/coach work with your people.
  • You need information on what is working and what is not.
  • Celebrate your strengths.
  • Prioritize two weaknesses to address over the next 3 months.

Continuous improvement efforts within a team is a positively contagious activity. It shows we care. It shows that leadership is humble. It shows that the organization wants to be better for the team members.

When organizations take on change that was driven by individual contributors, the engaged employees will recruit similar high performing people into the organization. If you focus on employee engagement and satisfaction, everything gets easier in the Finding and Retaining of Top Talent.