Angela Hunter: How to keep good staff

Employees say they want to hear the truth and be given realistic goals.

One of the biggest concerns of fast-growing New Zealand businesses is how to give their people a sense of common purpose and engagement.

Companies are often searching for answers on how they can engage staff and extend what their organisation can achieve through reward and recognition. Business leaders are also often uncertain they are doing everything they can to motivate individuals to achieve and perform, while giving staff the appropriate credit.

At a GE Capital event in Christchurch, companies in the construction and transport industries talked about how a lack of resource in their local talent pool placed an even greater need on retaining staff.

We looked at methods to retain top talent, including ensuring staff feel involved and committed to the business. Conversation really started to flow when we talked about connecting staff with company goals to meet business objectives, and asked whether people in their organisation felt connected to the larger purpose.

By the same token, if a company received good customer feedback, we discussed whether this was then associated to the people in the organisation. Did they feel like they were part of the solution?

Another priority within well-run companies is ongoing training and development, and also, what we at GE call "stretch" assignments for high-performing employees.

An advocate for staff development John Beeson, US-based management consultant and author of The Unwritten Rules: The Six Skills You Need To Get Promoted To The Executive Level, says company leaders should develop people on several fronts.

It is important to build skills in their current jobs, broadening their capabilities so they can contribute more and helping them define and achieve career goals. Companies need to work hard to identify the people they can stretch to take on more challenging assignments and who will grow in the process, he says.

Clare Parkes, founder of Beyond Learning, which creates learning and development solutions for companies, stresses the importance of sincerity .

In engagement surveys, employees often said they want to hear the truth and be given realistic goals as well as feeling like they are being heard themselves, Parkes says.

Employees enjoy having the opportunity to engage with their manager in a meaningful way but, that said, there's nothing like hearing from a senior leader, she says.

An "all hands" meeting where all employees drop tools for a short time to hear the same message from the company leader is an option.

Beyond this, Parkes says staff need follow up and sustained energy from senior leaders that demonstrates the performance they are asking of the team, that keeps them accountable to the goals agreed to, and that provides them with the support to deliver against the expectations.