An organisation needs to focus on retention as well as recruitment. The external facing image and culture of a reputable organisation to prospective employees is strong and consistent. The lack of follow through can be disheartening to new employees. The bar is set quite high before they come on board which makes the disenfranchisement even more pronounced. If an organisation is to be sustainable it needs to be able to hire talent that will grow with the organisation and develop the skills needed, i.e., on the job training, developing multi skills and possibly external education. It can implement a leadership programme to identify potential talent for leadership roles early on and have a structure in place to develop people with the right skills and experience in-house. This will be a great opportunity to communicate and realign the ‘HR vision’ and to stress the importance of talent management as a priority.
A poor reward system should also be addressed. An organisation needs to earn the right to maintain the attitude of low pay on the provision that it develops sufficient reward systems for those who are high potential. Business leaders need to clearly outline the expectations of employees in terms of work environment; career growth and remuneration plus the need to incorporate an ability to manage change as a key competency. When employees perceive distributive justice, (fairness of allocation of pay, layoffs and promotions) they are less likely to quit their jobs and more likely to have greater job satisfaction and trust towards management. Good communication directly from the CEO such as a regular newsletter explaining the CEO’s vision of where he wants to take the company, and how he plans to do this will need to be clearly communicated alleviating some fears of change.
A strategy management team should be put together from a cross section of employees to redefine the vision for long and short term strategy; they will also become responsible for monitoring it. Instilling a strong collaborative and team-player approach amongst the different groups (starting with the executive team) and encouraging the empowerment of staff to work with the internal groups will be an important function of management. New changes will need to be measured for effectiveness. It is also important to gauge how the employees feel about these changes. This could be done via frequent anonymous surveys, and regular meetings with teams and HR advisors to ask for feedback for the establishment of a culture of open and honest communication and as a measurement for operating efficiencies. The general feeling of disconnect between the workforce and the management can be addressed by direct CEO communications going out to employees on a regular basis. There is a need to develop an overarching training strategy encouraging staff to develop multi-skilling. This will improve a sense of job security, allowing career growth. It also provides improved options to Management for incentivising the workforce; creating flexibility and adaptability to change. It also presents the opportunity to implement a leadership programme and rewards system. Adding tasks and/or rotating task assignments so that employees experience reasonable variety and make use of their talents and abilities are known to increase motivation (Murray et al., 2006). According to the LMX or Vertical Dyad Linkage theory, by reframing his/her leadership towards more support and empowerment of the employees the new CEO will refocus and be more involved in the internal aspects of the business in order to adopt growth with a strong focus on Human Resources (Graen and Scandura, 1986).
I took a graduate course in strategic human resource management last year and two key things I got out of the course were that HR professionals should become strategic partners within the organization rather than just the traditional "personnel" or "payroll" department, and HR professionals need to be aware of the different ways of relating to multiple generations in the workplace.
ReplyDeleteIn my former role at a small community bank with less than 250 employees, I often found that there was a huge disconnect between human resources, management, and general workers on the front line. In some departments, managers would not help employees learn their tasks, human resources would always take the side of the manager and not listen to the employee's side of the story, and there were times when both human resources and senior management would make decisions without consulting front line staff prior to the decision being made. This ultimately undermines collaboration and creative problem solving, which in turn forces the organization to be reactionary rather than proactive in their approach to business.
Quick fixes don't always work. As an example, I was terminated from my job in February of this year, and as of this month the manager has yet to find a replacement. This has most likely cost the department money from having to pay overtime wages to current employees and will cost more money in training as the job I did was one that I was still learning two years after starting in the department.
If you're interested in seeing some of my work, my reports are available at http://amandatallman.com/work-samples/ and I started a blog at www.creativeleadershipperspectives.com.
Thanks Amanda. Great blog. I certainly look forward to reading more articles on it.
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