How to retain great people

There is no shortage of ideas being thrown around to make sense of what is happening in the labour market today.  Here’s what I’m seeing:

• Unemployment is at record lows while job vacancies have never been more plentiful—at least in my lifetime

• Job leaving has never been higher. In the United States they are leaving the job market in record numbers. In Canada, fortunately they are staying in the job market but going to another job. What is more interesting is when you dig into the reasons people are leaving.

  1. communication from leadership (i.e. my supervisor),

  2. not feeling appreciated and

  3. work/life balance and the accompanying stress and anxiety of work.

The first two reasons are typically the main reasons people cite for leaving a job but the surprise is that work/life balance/stress issues appears in the top three.

• Employee engagement is fluctuating wildly. When I say wildly, I’m talking a percent or two each month. While this might not seem like what you would describe as ”wildly” but considering that the employee engagement metric has barely budged in 25 years, a couple percent is “wildly” !

So how do you make sense of this ? Here’s my take:

• Low unemployment and lots of job vacancies—it’s a job seeker’s market

• Job leaving rationale—people are looking for greater psychological safety, more appreciation and more connection with their supervisor and their colleagues

• Wildly fluctuation engagement—people are looking for a sense of stability and control

Therefore, if you want to attract and keep top talent, here’s the question you need to be asking yourself. 

In a job seekers market, how do we create a more psychologically safe, more connected, more appreciative culture where people feel a greater sense of certainty ?

To do this, you need a leadership skill, a positive character strength, a way of being, a virtue, a vaccine—it really doesn’t matter what you call it, but it needs to help people:

• feel more psychologically safe

• feel more appreciated

• feel more balanced/supported

• build connections—between manager and staff and colleague to colleague

• help people focus on the good so their mindset is more attuned to stability, certainty and control

• be more productive

• go the extra mile

• gossip less

• be less likely to ostracize others

• be more intrinsically motivated

• be more optimistic and positive

• be happier and healthier

Quite a list.

There is a leadership skill (that’s what I call it) that you can nurture to accomplish this and you guessed it—it’s gratitude.

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