There are many challenges that any organisation faces in this fast speed, digital world. However any management book, seminar, survey will tell you that the single most important asset any company has will be its human capital i.e. its people. There are several steps in attracting, recruiting, motivating and retaining your star performers or as Tom Peters says in Re-Imagine: every person in your company should be and can be a rock star in what they do. How does your company measure up to this benchmark? What measures do you take to make sure, you have the right tools in place to make them rock stars?
Every survey conducted in recent years on employee satisfaction emphasise that employees want to be appreciated, valued, develop their skills and have fun at work. Yet most companies seem to respond to these desires by higher salaries to get them in the door, so to speak. Once recruited very little or nothing is done to ensure optimal employee motivation and satisfaction. In an economy with low unemployment, staff are being poached and not just at management level.
We need to do everything, we can to attract, uncover and nurture every person’s rock star potential.
How you ask? Well how many companies state they promote work/life balance in the work place?
How many actively promote it other than to give it lip service? People are clever, they are attracted by what you do, not what you say. Furthermore they believe it when they hear it from your current SuperStars, I mean staff.
Every new recruit will have their own life/career coach for the first three months with your company.
This personal coach will be there with them to assist your new SuperStar to settle in, ensure that the transition is smooth and that the honeymoon period does not wane, but intensifies.
The personal coach will work with your new superstar once a week in your time paid for by your company to demonstrate at a very concrete level that you are interested in them as a person and that you are committed to their work/life balance, to their skill development, to their growth on a personal and professional level.
The benefit to the employee:
They will grow personally and professionally. They will want to come to work, they will give their best and best of all they will want to tell everyone why your company is the best to work for. In short, they have been converted into YouNique SuperStars!!
The benefit to your organization:
You will have a totally committed staff member, who will want to come to work. They will be motivated and motivating to others around them. Your staff will give 110% and attract other SuperStars into your organisation by being a SuperStar!! Your company will become an Employer of Choice. This will save on recruitment costs and give your company free publicity that money cannot buy! People are convinced by action, not by rhetoric!
What’s the cost and can your company afford it?
Let’s look at the cost of an employee say at supervisory level:
Their salary may be $75k per annum + 9% superannuation + 30% on-costs= $106,275
Recruitment costs 15% x 81,750 ( salary package) = $12,262
Cost to company if this employee leaves company is double their annual cost plus recruitment costs=$224, 812.
Not to mention the cost of low morale amongst your current staff when someone leaves or the toll it takes on them having to cover for this person leaving!
Can you afford NOT to give each and every employee their own career coach when they start with your organization?