dangletech

People are the currency of today’s business. We have, to a large extent, exited businesses where people were simply hands and feet and occasionally asked to think, as they performed their parts.
Today, it doesn’t matter what business you are in, you are not long for survival unless your people are engaged and utilizing their many talents and most importantly their thinking and reasoning skills.
Of course, you say, that’s common sense. Well then, why is it that in survey after survey, a majority of employees say that they are not fulfilled in their work and are not utilizing their talents fully?
At a recent conference I attended, in fact, the survey results for close to 500 major North American Companies showed that only 12% of employees believed that their talents were being fully utilized, and this percentage was down from 14% two years earlier.

I’ll suggest some things, based on my observations of people over the past 30 years in the workplace that may be contributing to these low scores, and then identify a few simple actions that have helped others and may help leaders to address this in your workplace.
First, some thoughts re root causes behind the low scores:

1. Uninteresting work. People are not robots. They require variety; they require challenge; they require a connection between what they are doing and how the company makes its money. Too often, employees are hired for a job and seemingly forgotten about, with the sense that all is good and will be so for at least a few years. If the work is uninteresting, people will not be engaged and will not put forth discretionary effort, and ultimately, may choose to leave.
2. Uninspiring Boss. People are self motivated, and in fact demonstrate this day in and day out in how they go about their lives outside of work. To choose to work though and contribute one’s talents to a cause, people need to work for leaders who are able to engage and excite them about the mission of the organization and how and why what the employees do is important. If they believe that what they are doing is important towards a meaningful end goal, count on them to do their best and be thinking about ways to further improve things.
3. Lack of Support. Being told “No”; being denied resources; not being provided with relief when tasked with too many priorities in too short a timeframe are all talent killers. In an environment such as this, people will quickly realize that they are working their way to being unfulfilled and suffering potential burn-out and will take steps to self-preserve, by initiating fewer new ideas; getting the work done, even if by cutting corners; or potentially leaving for a better envronment.
4. Management Not Walking The Talk. If there have been shifts in the workplace over the past couple of decades, I would argue that the biggest has been around the increasing democratization of organizations. Regardless of job level and regardless of industry, employees have an expectation that they will be treated fairly and with respect. They also have an expectation that management will say what is important to organizational success and then back this up with consistent actions. Woe to the leaders who still think that they can operate with a command and control management style or have one set of rules for a subset of employees and another for the general employee population. Those feeling treated unfairly won’t necesssarily rush out the door, but watch for a slow and steadily increasing stream of exits, and growing resentment and resulting declines in productivity.
5. Lack of Opportunity To Grow. Companies that do not advance are in decline. The same holds true for employees, and while Companies may not always see the truth in this statement, employees increasingly do. Ask an employee who’s leaving what caused them to leave and most often (apart from quitting an ineffective Manager), they are leaving for greater opportunity (=more learning and greater challenges) elsewhere. Despite appearances, they are not leaving for more money (although that’s often an added bonus). Before leaving though, these employees will have spent a lot of time bringing their resumes up to date and engaging in job search, reducing their productivity to focus on these job search related activities.

Now, what have I seen employers big and small do and do effectively to engage and retain their great people?

Well, they do several things right.

At the highest level, they treat their employees as adults. They trust them and demonstrate this trust in big ways and small, some examples of which are to allow their employees flexibility around scheduling, when for example, family needs require attending too. They don’t ask their employees to keep track of time worked or time off on time sheets. They judge their employees on the basis of results achieved (what and how) vs. by hours worked. They celebrate accomplishments and support their employees when obstacles inevitably emerge. They take a few moments each day to check in on their employees; to inquire around how they are doing; and whether there is any assistance that is needed. And they take action.  They remember that their employees spend more time with them than at home and so they try to make the workplace as fulfilling as possible, with opportunities for employees to network, socialize, and have fun.
They practice consistency between what they say they will do and what gets done and communicate clearly what the priorities are and why these are important both for the organization and for the employees to be successful.
In larger organizations, there are more tools available, such as employee engagement surveys, 360 degree feedback, formalized performance planning and review processes,  third party conduct review advisors, and learning and development programmes, to help ensure that there is two way communication as well as alignment.
At any level of organization however, there are leaders, and it is the leader at the top who sets the tone for the organization. In organizations with strong and effective leadership, count on employee engagement and productivity to be high. In organizations where this is not the case, the opposite will hold true.

I suspect that the survey results showing such a low percentage of employees (12%) feeling that their talents are being fully utilized is a reflection of the percentage of effective leaders in the workplace.

This should not be viewed as disheartening. Rather, for the leaders out there reading this blog, this should be viewed as a wake-up call, and a wonderful opportunity to achieve significant and enduring competitive advantage in the workplace by doing something that we are already doing outside of work.

Please feel free to share your own experiences with respect to what your’e doing as a leader or what your organization is doing that is helping to reverse the talent utlization decline.