As the workforce continues to age and fewer new employees enter the workforce there will be a shortage of employees, putting the power into the hands of highly skilled employees.  A Pew Research Center study predicts that over the next two decades, 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65 every day.   There is already a shortage of talent in key positions such as; skilled labor, engineering, sales, and I.T. technicians. In the United States almost 50% of organizations report that they are having difficulty in finding talent.  What will happen when the job market picks up?   Employees in high demand will be more likely to move if they are not highly engaged with the organization. In a poll that Right Management conducted in the beginning of 2012 84% of people said that they were planning on looking for a new job in 2012. This was up from about 60% in 2011. It is certainly possible that if and when hiring picks up we will see a significant amount of movement.  Employers who have lower levels of engagement could be at risk to lose key talent and may not be able to replace that talent very quickly.

Alternatively, companies that focus on engagement will position themselves to create a competitive advantage. As technology continues to level the playing field, the human component will be more important than ever to an organizations performance. The research is very clear that companies that have highly engaged workforces are more productive, have higher retention rates, and can use that advantage to drive innovation.  In a Right Management study there was a strong correlation between engagement and customer satisfaction, retention, and organizational performance.  Organizations that were the best performers reported double the level of engagement compared to companies that were under performers.   In addition, the study also found that engaged employees were 7 times less likely to leave the organization in the next year and 1.5 times more likely to stay for at least five years.

Instead of focusing on cost reduction or productivity, companies may be better served by focusing on improving employee engagement, which is often an underlying cause of low productivity, poor customer service, and high turnover.

There are many ways to improve engagement in an organization. What’s critical is that senior leaders begin to take engagement seriously.  As the economy turns around, baby boomers retire and there is an increased need for skilled positions, the talent shortage will only grow.  Engagement and retention will become critical to productivity and ensuring that your organization remains competitive moving forward.

1. It is difficult to create a future that you have never seen or experienced
2. It is also difficult to create a future that you don’t believe can occur.

Don’t underestimate how much these two forces can hold a team back. I once was brought in to work with a team of about 15 managers in a commercial construction company. Their manager knew the team could be so much more, but he struggled at getting them to have a vision.   My first meeting with the team was painful. They wouldn’t talk and seemed listless. They could have cared less about becoming something great. Or at least that’s what it seemed. At the next meeting we showed the team a video of a company that was in a similar line of business that they were. This company was much bigger and seemed to be having a lot more fun than they were. The company had a focus on servant leadership and this really connected with the employees.   What the video did for them was show them a future that is possible for them. It wasn’t pie in the sky. It was real and they could see it. They also believed that they could achieve it.  That short video completely changed their level of energy and engagement. They started talking, sharing ideas and even began meeting on their own to brainstorm on what they could do to become more like that company in the video.  

Of course there are many more steps to getting the team to achieve the vision. However, getting them energized is often a huge roadblock that you have to overcome to have any chance of success.

What is a leader to do? Research suggests that spending time in the area of career development can go a long way towards employee engagement. A number of studies show a strong correlation between career development and employee engagement. Providing your employees an ongoing opportunity to begin to assess their career goals, skills, and development opportunities will help them take ownership of their career. When employees know that you care about their own development they are more engaged and more likely to remain loyal to the organization. In addition, when employees have a plan for their future and their development they tend to handle internal organizational changes better.

I believe that in the future most organizations will value making an investment into career development initiatives. We are learning that investing in career development has many benefits to the organization including an increase in engagement, productivity, and innovation. One example of this is a fortune 500 consumer products company that saw a division’s attrition rate drop to less than half of the company’s average after putting it’s employees through a career development program. (For more information about the link between career development and engagement refer to a research article on the references page)

The next challenge is how to integrate a career development process into the organization, especially when a leader may not feel they have the time to invest a significant amount of hours into coaching their employees around career development. The following is the “short version” of model that many organizations have used.

1. Create a process that is self-directed.

You will most likely not have time to meet with each of your employees twice a month to help them create and manage their career plan and to hold them accountable. However, there are plenty of resources to help employees manage this process themselves. These could be online career development portals, onsite training classes, assessments, or a chance to meet with a career coach. The key is to create a process that employees can go through that encourages them to take ownership of their career and manage it themselves.

2. Managers must be engaged in the process

However, you will not be able to make this successful without some involvement. The need for some level of manager involvement is critical to this process succeeding. In addition, this is often lacking. Research suggests that 70% of managers rarely have career conversations with their employees. A manager can provide significant value to this process for the employee. They may have insights into skills that the employee does not recognize in themselves. They may have awareness of opportunities and jobs within the organization that might be a good fit for the employee. This is a critical piece that is often skipped and often leads to low engagement in the career development process. This may mean quarterly or bi-annual meetings with an employee around their career development goals and action steps.

3. It should lead to a plan and have regular follow up

The result in this process should be a plan of action that includes goals, and action steps. This gives the employee something concrete but also makes it easy for the manager to have periodic conversations with them about their progress. It also might provide insight into ways that you can create better alignment between their goals and business needs. For example, lets say that out of this process you find that your employee has a desire and a skill set to improve internal processes. Providing them an opportunity to use these skills to benefit the organization is a win /win. It sounds simple but this is often overlooked.

Investing in career development for employees can have a significant ROI. To make it work it will take a commitment to both time and money. Yet, if managed wisely it can lead to significant benefits for the organization and you may be the organization that doesn’t fear a loss of critical talent as the economy begins to improve

I welcome your input.

Perhaps you may need to improve a skill; like your sales skills. Or, your network isn’t big enough. Typically there are one or two significant obstacles that need to be dealt with. Doing this exercise helps you get clear on what exactly it is you need to do. Studies have shown that mental contrasting reliably leads to greater effort, energy, planning and goal achievement.

1.     Get Really Specific

When I talk to people about their goals they are usually vague and fuzzy. The problem with fuzzy goals is that your strategy tends to be fuzzy as well. When goals and strategies are fuzzy its easy to get discouraged and lose sight of where you are headed. Thousands of studies have shown that getting more specific is one of the single most effective steps you can take to reach any goal. Instead of saying you want to “grow your business” think in terms of spelling out exactly how you want your business to look. How many clients do you want? What will you be doing in revenue? What new service or product will you be offering?   Also, detail out the steps you will take to get there.   What are the 2-3 key strategies that you will employ to get there? What skills do you need to improve upon?    Setting specific goals also creates some self -accountability. You know when you’ve reached it and know when you haven’t.

Recently a client who is a well -respected photographer was explaining his thoughts around a new service that he has been thinking of offering to businesses. If it worked it would generate a significant amount of new business during the slower months. The problem was that he was a photographer and not a sales person and wasn’t particularly comfortable trying to sell an idea to business executives. After much deliberation, he approached a client whom he felt would be the most open to this. The client liked the idea so much, he opened his checkbook and signed up on the spot. What is telling is what happened next. The photographer said, after that experience I felt emboldened, so I decided to call on another client. He too, loved the idea and said yes. Now, the photographer really wanted to get moving on this. He decided that over the next 3 months his goal would be to book 3 appointments a week with businesses to pitch this idea. If he could close 50% of them he would have a great first quarter. What do you think was the driver behind his motivation? Of course it was having success with the first client, but if you look deeper it was the emotion that his success created. He felt emboldened! It wasn’t his goals that drove him to do more; it was how he felt. He later went on to say that if he hadn’t had success with the first prospect he probably wouldn’t have moved forward.

This is a critical point in motivating ourselves. Goals alone will not help you achieve what you want. Writing them down won’t mean a thing unless you have the proper emotion to go along with the goal. if you don’t feel “emboldened” all of the goal setting and accountability won’t do a thing. Successful people learn how to cultivate the right feeling that will help them achieve the goal. Scientists have proven that it is possible to choose how you feel. You just need to learn how to access the proper emotion. Think of it this way, inside your brain is a compartment with hundreds of potential emotions. You can use any of them at any time. You just have to learn how to access them. If we look at what the photographer did in this situation, he unknowingly accessed this emotion by setting himself up for success. By calling on the person most likely to say yes, he was creating an environment where he would have success and feel good about it.   There are hundreds of ways to create the proper emotions, here are a few.

1. Make emotions an important part of your strategy. Recognize that how you feel will go a long way in determining how successful you are.

2. Choose the emotion that you need to access to help you achieve the goal. Research has shown that just by saying to yourself how you want to feel will activate that emotion in the brain. what this means is that just saying to yourself; “ I feel emboldened” your brain will access that emotion and you will begin to feel that way.

3. When venturing into a new and somewhat uncertain area, set yourself up for short term success. If you have to convince people you work with about a new idea, go to the person most open to new ideas first. Don’t go the most difficult person. Create small wins to build the proper emotions within yourself.

In the past ten years scientists have learned a lot about emotions and how they impact our success and happiness. It is no longer ok, to catagorize emotions as something that is soft and fuzzy. They are real, they are occurring in our brain 100% of the time, and to be truly successful one must learn how to manage and use them to their benefit.

Problems can overwhelm us to the point that we become paralyzed. We get stuck in the problem and can live there for a long time. Sometimes years! Think about the small business owner who has built a successful business but gets stuck at a certain revenue level and can’t seem to move past it. The problem is not the problem. The problem is how we view the problem. Because we see this as a huge problem we get emotionally overwhelmed and assume that we need to make a big change to solve it. Sometimes big problems need small solutions. Overweight- stop eating out for lunch. Your business isn’t growing- contact 1 old client a day. Not attracting enough leads-tell 1 person a day about your business (I know a coach who used this strategy to successfully build a full practice). Can’t get focused- spend 15 minutes a day being focused on 1 long- term idea that you want to work on. (that’s 90 hours in a year).   There are hundreds of ways to solve any problem. The key- think small!