While we can all agree that engagement is key to business success, its easy for employers and business owners to fall into the trap of keeping their employees in the “roles they are great at” instead of assisting these employees to map their potential career path.
To boost engagement employers should always make potential career pathways clearly visible and ensure managers regularly discuss transfer options to maximise engagement levels. According to recent research, one in five workers are in the wrong job, and when they move, the shift in engagement levels is “absolutely huge”.
It’s really down to managers and leaders taking the time to have meaningful discussions with their employees in order to really understand what they want, what motivates them, what drives them.
They need to be able to have courageous conversations where they are able to say ‘”just because there may not be an opportunity right now, does not mean that this will always be the case. If I know what direction you are wanting to go, let’s see how we can move you’.”
Managers must also be willing to release staff who may be high performers in their organisations but whose personal aspirations are not aligned with what that specific business unit needs or wants, and let them go somewhere else within the organisation, so the talent is retained internally rather than lost to an external competitor.
Recent survey results conducted by Hilton hotel chain show a shift in the number one reason people remain employed with the organisation.
In 2010, 33% of employees said they remained employed because they had the opportunity to grow their career, while 27% said it was because they wanted to be associated with the brand. Now, association with brand has taken over career growth opportunities (25% and 23% respectively). From further internal research and feedback, they deduced that the shift in this statistic is based on the visibility that your career will be taken care of at Hilton, so working and being loyal to the brand is actually now the key driver of retention