Every job candidate hopes to hear these words from prospective employers: “Opportunity is bountiful here.” If your organization makes such a claim, but cannot live up to it, you’ll find yourself stuck in a revolving door of turnover.
While growth may not be the No. 1 reason candidates accept a job offer, it certainly has a huge impact on retention and is a leading factor in why they leave. In fact, a study from job website Glassdoor reports that for one in three employees, a lack of career growth was the primary reason for seeking employment elsewhere.
These findings demonstrate the influential role growth plays in an employee’s decision to stay or leave. Because an engaged workforce equals a more productive workforce, it is time employers pay closer attention to employee development.
Pitfalls and Best Practices
Whatever your sentiment is about employee engagement, you’d have to agree that the following are terribly inadequate practices that hurt talent management strategies. Thankfully, there is hope. In four easy steps, employers can reinstate honest and fair procedures that will promote workforce engagement. After all, when employees’ goals align with the company’s goals, everyone wins.
- Abandon Pursuit
Trying something new doesn’t always come naturally; unfortunately, when this happens, we conclude we have no knack for it. Most business giants don’t rely on their innate talents as much as their hard-earned skills. These skills are developed, not bred. In order to be great at anything, you have to dedicate time to continuous training and coaching.
- Put on the Blinders
One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is only focusing on what is working and ignoring what isn’t. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist … and it’s not going away. It’s like a deep cut: Covering it up with a Band-Aid doesn’t heal the wound; you have to treat it with the appropriate medicine. But you can’t fix what you don’t know is broken, so we suggest surveying your employees to find the root of the problem:
- Are they happy at work?
- Do they have the tools they need to excel at their job?
After gathering responses, develop a plan to remedy the issue. Stay in constant contact with your employees to ward off potential threats before they strike.
- Set Unrealistic Expectations
Sometimes we label people, thereby assigning specific expectations, some of which may be unrealistic. By putting people in a box, you shut them off from reaching their true potential. What they currently do defines neither who they are nor what they can become. When you get to know more about your people, you may find out that the guy over in IT is actually a wonderful artist. He might bring a new perspective to your next marketing campaign. Encourage individuality and appreciate employees’ talents, hobbies and gifts. Empower them to use these abilities outside of their own departments. Find ways to cross-promote.
- Ignore the Obvious Choice
Promoting from within builds loyalty and trust with employees. Leveraging existing talent is quite simple when you link performance with compensation. In this scenario, you have the insight to tell you if an employee’s performance merits a raise or promotion; the data is right there in front of you. You’re spending less time on recruiting efforts; meanwhile, you’re improving the bottom line. While promoting from within may not always be the right option, at the very least it is worth considering.
In debunking the four major talent management pitfalls, we reach the moral of the story: If you grow your people, you grow your business. With Paycom’s Talent Management tool, you can leverage existing workforce data to reach engagement goals with efficiency and insight.