Corporate Leaders Rank SOS Areas
In a recent poll, company leaders indicated employee alignment with company vision, mission, and purpose ranks at the top for key areas at work to improve. Next, Leaders ranked stronger engagement and motivation as a critical need.
Yet consistently, reports from trusted sources like Gallup are uncovering an unprecedented era of not only employee disengagement, but what some are calling “Active Disengagement,” far worse than the former. Reports outline that Actively Disengaged employees become vocal enough about the toxic work culture, that influencing even more employees to jump on the turnover bandwagon and secure better opportunities becomes the side effect.
Who Is Walking Out?
Maybe You’ve Heard of “Quiet Quitting”
While high turnover rates are in part, instigated from recent lay-offs and the elimination of some departments, the turnover rates are increased by the amount of highly skilled, high performing employees leaving current jobs. Understandably, many of today’s employees inherently understand their value, skills, abilities, and potential, as they possess an unwavering commitment to uphold personal values and beliefs. Therefore, being expected to tolerate a toxic work culture quite simply, does not work for them. They can and will find opportunities that meet their needs and align with their purpose–a company that recognizes their value and treats them accordingly.
Confident in their abilities, skilled and desirable team members refuse to stay in dysfunctional work environments. They are not intimidated by the pursuit of a new job, knowing that just on the other side of that search awaits a work culture that will value their contributions, fosters healthy, happy teams, and at its core, serves a greater need.
Consequently, there is yet, a third group of unhappy, disengaged employees choosing the “safe” option to stay in their current role, yielding to their “fear of the unknown,” (searching for a new job), thereby tolerating the same toxic work culture. They justify the “safe” option is to stay, while dredging through daily disappointment, no purpose guiding them, further disconnecting from leadership and their teams.
The Correlation Between Red Zone Areas and Turnover of Skilled Workers
Simply, “if the juice isn’t worth the squeeze”, you don’t have a team and count on watching your valuable skilled leaders respectfully, but quietly exit a secure position. Their self respect is high and therefore, they’ll always honor personal boundaries even when it means a career change. It is critical to firmly understand that in today’s work culture, a healthy, high functioning company with a strong valuable mission is precisely whom these skilled individuals seek to align their purpose toward and feel valued. Today’s employees want to know that the place where they spend a majority of their time is paying dividends in altruistic means, serving a higher purpose, and greater good. We are in a different era.
It truly is no surprise then, that motivation was listed by Leaders as yet, another critical area needing improvement this year.
Solving The Multi-Layered Enigma
How do you slow down or better, end high turnover? And how can you create alignment with company vision, mission, and goals while motivating teams to work in sync harmoniously?
Five Words: Go Back to the Basics
Maybe you’ve been told this before. But the basics are there for a reason: they are key foundational pieces in building strong teams. At some point, we all have to revisit the basics – we never stop learning and we certainly never know everything.
Trust. Respect. Active Listening. Clear Communication and Clear Expectations. Knowing your team’s individual strengths. Caring about them and acknowledging concerns without dismissing them. These are all foundational elements required to build strong teams. You can’t build a house on a bag of sand and you can’t build a strong team without trust, respect, and strong leadership skills.
Therefore, examine possibilities of varied learning platforms: lectures, motivational speakers, online learning, and experiential learning. Evaluate how programs can effect real ROI for your company through skill building, behavior change, and real time practice of new skills geared to solve these issues within your team.
Don’t Underestimate Your Team’s Learning and Development Needs
Determine the gaps in your team, find solutions, and invest in your employees. Happy employees that feel heard, appreciated, and operate together with trust will go the extra mile time and time again. In today’s uncertain times, every company needs this.
While companies assess on paper areas to cut back or expand, playing the balancing act on budget constraints, sometimes slashes are made in earnest that actually, make matters worse. While it can be difficult to put a number, an ROI, or a figure to the value derived from training initiatives, look at the qualitative results as well. Think about the before and after effects of culture, camaraderie, team collaboration, levels of accountability, willingness to help each other vs withholding ideas and feedback, gossip, negativity, and isolation from each other. Did the level of trust between co-workers increase? Were there improvements? Sometimes, these improvements are difficult to quantify on paper, leading to skewed perceptions of the efficacy in your L&D programs. Take an honest look at what it was like before and after, ask others for their opinions, and earnestly consider the unspoken and unwritten value of what training and development has done and can do for your teams. Understanding the hidden gaps of information that may be lacking on P&L statements, ROI reports, and bottom line reports on paper will keep you fully informed to make better decisions for your organization.
If you’re scratching your head as to the “missing information” and the “why” behind a poor work culture riddled with no motivation and low morale, dig deeper…the truth is there in front of you.
At Triangle Equine Assisted Learning, our Equine Partners provide access immediate behavior change, skill building, and transformational growth – your much needed tool to overcome many challenges. Find out today how our horses help Leaders and Teams like yours break barriers and exceed expectations!
