Six
ingredients to becoming an employer of
choice.
Most people believe that what is apparent is
important, but employers of choice recognize that what
is not apparent is most important. Here are the
top six lessons learned by employers of choice about
the important – but not always apparent –
elements of the best places to work.
Managers
as coaches
What makes a company
a great place to work? The short answer is: good
managers.
The manager sets the
tone and translates broad corporate initiatives so
they make sense to individual employees. He must
understand the strengths of each employee and work to
fit people into roles where they can excel.
When employees know
their boss cares about their opinions and helps them
to understand and know themselves, their talents
become recognized and applied so that each person
brings his best to the workplace. When managers
don’t spend the time to develop a relationship
with each subordinate, people leave. Having a mediocre
manager, who has no idea of what an employee does and
doesn’t even try to understand, can be very
destructive to a company.
The quality of the
boss/worker relationship is a major indicator of the
employee’s intentions to remain at the company.
That relationship improves when the manager becomes
more like a coach, listening and then monitoring the
proposed action of the person being
coached.
Connection
matters
Most people have
learned not to listen to what management says but to
pay attention only to what is going on around them on
a day-to-day basis.
The true structure
of the organization is not what is written down on an
organizational chart, but what actually occurs as
people connect through roles, influence and
decision-making processes. The connection and
coordination necessary to get things done happens
because of productive personal relationships based
upon trust and reciprocity. Sharing knowledge and
adding value to the organization depends upon the
capabilities of workers to informally connect with
others.
Understanding and
facilitating these relationships, which flow through a
web of professional networks and across functional
boundaries, allows employees to create productive
change. And since competition is a matter of
relations, the company’s ability to structure and
control the process of securing productive
relationships will determine success in the
marketplace.
“The best
leaders build the ‘social capital’ of their
organizations,” says Dr. Wayne Baker, author of
Achieving Success Through Social Capital (Jossey-Bass,
2000). “They enable their people to build the
business and personal networks they need to thrive in
the New Economy.”
Credibility
and attraction
If you build your
organization’s credibility, word-of-mouth will
spread this reality, and new employees will come to
you. Building a corporate reputation by focusing on
serving customers, having high quality
products/services, and attracting, developing and
retaining talented people is critically
important.
Your company’s
targeted audiences pay attention to the promises that
your executives make and keep. Corporate words and
actions have a dramatic impact on how companies are
perceived by prospective employees. People are
concerned how the positive or negative impact of the
work environment will affect who they are and who they
want to become.
All behavior is
sensitive to environmental cues. Employee capabilities
tend to change positively in a good work environment.
Because management shapes the work environment, it is
management who decides whether to make the
organization an employer of choice through
continuously implementing small
improvements.
Measuring
people power
Is your company the
best place for the best people to work?
Senior executives in
the “Most Admired Companies” (surveyed
annually by the Hay Group [haygroup.com]
for Fortune magazine [fortune.com])
believe in and use employee-based measurements to
encourage cooperation and collaboration. And 40
percent of those companies chart retention, career
development and other employee-oriented measurements.
That’s more than triple the percentage of
companies that didn’t make the list.
The companies on
this “Most Admired Companies” list have
leadership “who understand what performance
measurement is all about,” says Hay Group
managing director Vicky Wright. “It’s about
learning how to motivate people – how to link
those performance measures with real
rewards.”
Diagnostic
self-assessment is a well-established tool for
measuring people power by helping individuals accept
the need to change. “Most Admired Companies”
use some combination of personal
assessments:
“Who am
I?” – assessments that allow the
individual to look inward to better understand his
personality, interests and talents
“How do
others see me?” – assessments where
people who work with the individual provide structured
and anonymous input about the person’s on-the-job
competencies
“How do I
relate to others?” – assessments that
describe and profile the individual’s network of
relationships
Assessment tools
help generate reliable feedback, identify critical
behaviors for success, and provide direction for
customized development planning. Diagnostic
self-evaluation supports a key premise of social
learning theory that feedback is a necessary component
for learning new behaviors.
Bridging
quitting moments
Reorganizations,
changing leadership and procedural changes happen
almost weekly, and the ripple effects can turn a job
once loved into a job now hated. It’s easy to be
an outstanding performer when you’re doing work
that interests you and fulfills your inner
motivations. It’s tougher to perform well when
there is a mismatch between you and your
job.
Employees and
employers don’t always recognize the warning
signs of impending job trouble. Clues usually show up
before an actual blowup erupts, but workers are often
slow to admit, even to themselves, when a problem is
brewing. Perhaps, the qualities that first attracted
the employee to the position no longer exist, or the
employee has outgrown the assignment. The problem may
even rest with the boss or the changed work
environment.
All employees have
quitting moments when they entertain thoughts of
leaving. Employees are more likely to leave because
they want to do new things and take on more
responsibility. Yet, employers frequently fail to
create those challenges because they don’t know
the employee’s capabilities.
One of the best ways
to guard against employee disconnect is to implement a
process of providing and receiving feedback to and
from the employee. Having an up-to-date individual
development plan and access to nontechnical skills
training also helps to keep the manager and employee
on the same page.
Probably the most
important factors in keeping talented people is to
create a way for employees to feel excited by the work
and to know that they are learning valuable skills.
The quality of the boss/subordinate relationship,
supported by viable performance management systems,
helps employees get through those times when someone
comes along with a new job offer.
The
law of reciprocity
Employers of choice
know that ordinary people don’t change that much,
yet the power of a positive corporate culture can help
them achieve extraordinary success.
Their employees know
that hard work is part of the bargain of joining an
employer of choice. But they also know they will not
have to fight obstacles and insecurities alone because
they will be surrounded with positive ideas and role
models.
Employees believe
the company will treat them fairly, will consider
their needs and interests, and will share financial
success with them. These loyal employees attract
like-minded job candidates by telling others within
their personal networks. Employers of choice leverage
this attraction by providing employee referral
incentive programs to reward good employees for
bringing other good people on board.
John G. Agno,
President of Signature, Inc. in Ann Arbor, MI, is a
certified executive & business coach
Copyright 2001 by
Quantum Communications, Inc., 1493 Chain Bridge Road,
Suite 303, McLean, VA 22101. Reprinted from IT
Recruiter Magazine.
Turning
Heads
