Where will your top talent be in 2008? Will they be with you or with a competitor?

Most businesses today depend on a critical knowledge base to stay competitive, yet all too often little attention is given to how to retain that knowledge base. Money and reward programs are great, but the data from employees show that money is not the key to keeping them motivated and on board. You might be surprised to learn what is truly important to today's employees.

DEFINING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Employee engagement is defined as "an employee's willingness to put discretionary effort into his or her work in the form of extra time, brainpower, and energy." Engaged employees are not doing the work because they have to do it. Rather, they are doing it because they want to do it.
This kind of internal motivation is contagious to others and creates a culture of innovation and accountability.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT?
In the Fall 2003 Towers Perrin Study Working Today: Understanding What Drives Employee Engagement, the authors outline what is most important to employees, why employee engagement matters, and what you can do to improve employee engagement in your organization. The study involved 40,000 full-time employees and highlights the following crucial points:

• The statistical data show that engaged employees do out-perform others and are less likely to leave the company.
• Engaged employees are more willing to focus on customers and the operational performance of your organization, and that makes employee engagement a critical success factor.

WHAT CREATES EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT?
Most people are surprised at the top two factors that influence employee engagement. They are:

• Senior management's interest in employees' well being.
• Challenging work.
  

Pay and benefits didn't even make the top ten! Pay and benefits help to attract employees, but
they don't help to engage employees or make them want to stay.

ACTION PLANS
What can you do to improve employee engagement in your organization?
If there is one thing you should do to improve the odds that you have an engaged workforce and low turnover, it's this: be sure your managers and executives have the interpersonal skills necessary to motivate and engage employees.Management know-how doesn't come naturally to most. If your managers are people with technical training who have moved up through the ranks to management positions, you should be doubly concerned. The Gallup organization conducted a study asking employees why they left their companies. The top answer: "My manager."
Take a look at the manager leading your most successful group, and the manager leading the least successful group. What's the difference? It's very likely that the difference is in their ability to exhibit the 10 qualities of successful managers described in the accompanying box.
The good news is these skills can be developed, and it's not too late. A management development program could be the key to the success of your company. Not having one could be your downfall. With the appropriate development program, your managers will gain confidence, they'll be able to engage their employees, and productivity and customer service will improve.
When we talk about a management development program, what do we mean? What are the key components of a management development program that will improve employee engagement and retention?

THE RIGHT TRAINING
A one-day, standalone management training program will not give you the results you need.
Training programs are wonderful but rarely result in sustainable results. Managers attend training programs on topics designed to improve their interpersonal skills all the time (communication skills, performance management, etc.). During the day-long program, they practice new behaviors and feel motivated to bring those new behaviors back to the workplace.
But the truth is, it's rare for a manager to come out of a one-day program with those new behaviors fully integrated into his or her personal style.

Why? Because when a new situation comes up that wasn't covered in the training, or during times of change and stress, it's natural for people to revert back to the old, comfortable way of doing things. Training topics quickly get lost in the pressures of day-to-day work.
However, there is a proven way to get better results from your management training programs:coaching.

Employees can be coached by their supervisors. Managers can be coached by the executives to whom they report. And executives within an organization may reach outside for executive coaches, a trend that is on a major increase.


Executive coaching - Sometimes referred to as leadership coaching - intended to provide continuous, individualized support for business professionals in an effort to develop the competencies associated with good leadership. Good leadership, in turn, motivates employees,boosts productivity, impacts service and product quality, stimulates employee morale and retention, and ultimately increases profitability and shareholder value. MW


Gail Finger is an organizational consultant and executive coach, bringing 20 years of expertise in the areas of
human motivation, performance and the psychology of change.