Have you seen the latest employee morale and commitment survey conducted by Watson Wyatt and WorldatWork ? If not, you can view it at
WorldatWork.
- Nearly 3 of 4 (72%) employers have gone through a restructuring or made layoffs since the economic downturn
- Employee engagement levels for all workers at the companies surveyed have dropped 9 percent since last year, and close to 25% for top performers
- The number of top performers who would recommend that others take jobs at their company has declined by nearly 20 percent
- Top performing employees are 29% less confident in management's ability to grow the business
- Compared to last year, top performing employees are 14% less likely to stay with their company.
An executive with WorldatWork was quoted as saying....."Taking a total rewards approach and looking at all of the ways companies can motivate and retain - including compensation, benefits, work-life initiatives and career development - is going to be essential."
I agree! In my
September 9 blog post, I talked about the importance of managers taking accountability for employee retention. This is becoming more and more important as the economy shows some signs of recovery and as job opportunities begin to open up. I think what I said in that blog bears repeating:
Manager Accountability for Retention: Managers at all levels -- not just at the top -- need to be held accountable for keeping good people in the company. They need to be more involved than ever before. They need to step up their "management by walking around" activities. They need to bite the bullet and deal directly with employee emotions -- including fear and anger. They need to provide an open door for employees to walk through to talk about their issues and concerns. And, they need to develop employees in ways that make them want to stay.
Interestingly, we have found that the use of Paradigm Learning's
Mosaic: The Art of Talent Leadership -- a program for managers to help them understand their impact on retention and to build a plan to take action with their own employees -- has actually
declined during this time of economic unrest. We think it's possible that some of our clients who said things like "We can't afford to take time to deal with employee retention issues right now" might end up saying "We wish we had done something earlier!"
What do you think?
