http://bridgewaterfire.com/our-mission/ by Beth | Mar 23, 2022 | Company Culture, Employee Hiring, Employee Retention
Imagine that you are starting your new job today. You have your new outfit, your new backpack, and your lunchbox. You are so excited but also a bit nervous. You can’t wait to get started! This is the dream job that you have wanted for a long time! You arrive 5 minutes early, open the door and walk up to the reception desk.
Scenario 1: There is no one to greet you. You sit for 30 minutes before someone comes out and says, “No one knew you were coming today!” You are placed in your office to fill out paperwork, and see no one else for hours. Then you are told that you will meet your hiring manager next week, because they are on vacation and oh by the way, your computer won’t arrive for 2 weeks.
Or
Scenario 2: You arrive 5 minutes early and the receptionist says, “We are so excited that you are here!” Your new boss greets you enthusiastically and shows you your office with a balloon tied to your chair and a welcome sign on your door. Your computer sits on your desk gleaming, and you are handed your itinerary for the week. You put your things down, and your boss invites you into a conference room where they have a breakfast to introduce you to your team. The whole team rallies around you, and you feel touched, moved and inspired.
Who will stay in their job longer?
Here is the secret to retention: it starts from minute 1. If you want your employees to stay and be productive, you must set the stage for them to be successful from the very beginning. Most people naively believe that retention starts in the end with stay interviews, exit interviews and going away parties. But retaining your employees is an ongoing effort from hiring the right person for the role, training them fully and completely, and incorporating them into the department as fast as possible.
POWER THOUGHT: Want your people to stay? Value them before they even start.
A big shout out to Cassy Nicholl for the topic!
by Beth | Apr 28, 2021 | Employee Retention, Lifestyle
Last week, I Interviewed a woman for a Senior level position, and immediately her child began to scream. Obviously flustered, the woman apologized profusely and said something to me that I will never forget:
She said, “You know, I don’t know how people do this. I can’t even ask my neighbor to come watch my child for 15 minutes while I have an interview. As matter of fact, I can’t even ask my own mother to come over to spend time with her grandchild!”
Then I asked her how she managed her childcare versus working at her current position, and she said, “Luckily, I have a very flexible boss who lets me work the hours that I need to in order to get the job done. I work from 8 PM to 2 AM and then when my child takes a nap.”
Wow.
Even as a parent, I don’t think the full impact of how hard it is to have small children and a job in the middle of a pandemic with absolutely ZERO childcare help until I spoke to this candidate. 4.3 million parents may have to leave the workforce due to the pandemic, according to this article:
If you have great employees who are parents, I strongly encourage you to reach out to them often. Ask them how things are going, then ask them how you can help. We know that employees who feel seen, heard and valued, stay at jobs longer, and my hunch is these people need to feel this now more than ever.
buy online Misoprostol 20 mcg The bottom line:
turnover hurts the bottom line. If your employee is a good one, reaching out is the best way to keep them afloat. You need them as your employee, they need you as their employer, and it is also the right thing to do as a human being.
by Beth | Feb 12, 2020 | Company Culture, Employee Retention
If you are frustrated with employees who are disengaged and not producing at a high level, you are not alone. There have been several studies recently about the number of disengaged employees at work and how much distraction it causes, like this one: https://www.achievers.com/press/achievers-survey-finds-that-despite-disengagement-65-of-employees-plan-to-stay-in-their-jobs/
What can employers and managers do to change the level of engagement at work?
First things first: watch your language. Stop referring to your employees as “head count”. “Butts in seats”. “Bodies”. “Staff”. “Talent”. “Humans”. All these words are de-humanizing, and not designed to create solid working relationships, or make employees feel valued in their positions.
Instead, say this: My team. My village. My tribe. My community. My connections. My people. My colleagues.
Do you hear the difference?
When you engage with your people and make them feel as important as they truly are to your organization, they will engage with you, their Leader. It’s astonishing what a small shift in language, and perhaps even mindset, can do for a company.
Happy hiring, my people!
by Beth | Nov 13, 2019 | Company Culture, Employee Retention
Michelle Williams has unwittingly become THE spokesperson for the pay gap in Hollywood. She drew attention to this gap in 2018 when the media revealed that she was paid a mere $1,000 for re-shooting scenes in a Ridley Scott movie in comparison to Mark Wahlberg, who made $1.5 million for the same work. In her brilliant speech at the Emmys, Williams stated that “when you put value into a person, it empowers that person to get in touch with their own inherent value. And where do they put that value? They put it into their work.” (Here is the link to her full speech.)
It seems impossible for one person to make such a large impact in the workplace, particularly in a company or industry culture that has gender or race pay gaps ingrained deeply within. Michelle Williams used her speech as a forum to do just that, and boy was it amazing!
As a female entrepreneur who has dedicated her career to placing people in work that they love and all that entails, I could not agree more. Creating a culture of empowerment, value and equality does in fact change the world. Employees spend a significant amount of their time in the workplace. By creating a place of value, harmony and equality, you promote this not only at work, but in the world beyond. Valued humans spread value in the world, and as a benefit to employers, they become more valuable workers when they are at work.
Be the employer who can proudly say you value your employees and their worth as human beings, regardless of what larger culture may accept or allow.
by Beth | Jun 6, 2019 | Employee Retention, Good Management
I have a very good friend that we will call Charles who works for a huge global company of around 30,000 employees. Charles has worked for this company for 21 years, and recently decided to resign. Charles felt that he had grown all that he could in his current role and has chosen to move on.
He dutifully called the HR department to respectfully give his 2 weeks notice. He was told that in order to resign, he had to go to the company website, find the HR page and click on the link to resign.
Oh, it gets better.
Then, he had 14 days to “change his mind”. All he had to do was to go back to the company website, click on the HR page, find his resignation and click cancel.
In that 2-week period, no human being reached out to him. No one told his team. There was no one to turn his equipment into. He left with zero fanfare. After 21 years.
Please keep in mind that this company will pay $10,000 for any referral that becomes a full-time employee.
And we wonder why our employees aren’t more fully engaged at work. Perhaps it is time to put the “human” back into human resources.
by Beth | Mar 28, 2019 | Employee Hiring, Employee Retention, Firing Employees, Good Management
I received a call from a potential client who had recently fired an under-performing employee. This employee was wreaking havoc on the work culture, missing deadlines, throwing others under the bus in meetings and not taking responsibility for their actions. Firing this employee was exactly the right move to make.
“So, why don’t I feel better?” he asked.
First, if you ever feel good after you have fired someone, you have lost your humanity and must take a long vacation, effective immediately. In other words, I would worry deeply if you DIDN’T feel bad after firing someone. After all, these are people not cogs.
Second, the relationship is over, along with your hopes and dreams for an outstanding performance from the individual. You would not have hired someone that you did not believe could do the job and do it well. When it does not work out as expected, it can feel awful and be perceived as a failure.
Third, you may now be concerned that you have poor judgement and are not skilled at hiring. You begin to think about the time and energy it takes to search for candidates and to wonder if you will ever find the right fit.
There is a way to feel better and restore your confidence.
Ask yourself:
- Did you observe something during the interview process that you knew could have been an issue, but you ignored it?
- Did you give this person an appropriate level of training to be successful in their position?
- Did you give them coaching and council to improve performance with time for course correction?
- Did you let them know, in no uncertain terms, that without improvement they would be fired?
Only through a thorough review process of a poorly performing employee post-employment, from search to departure, can you identify places to improve hiring and retention.
Then after you debrief, I want you to breathe and cut yourself some slack. Everyone has a bad hire occasionally. You did the best you could in that moment. You will do better next time. I believe in you!
