Home arrow Newsletter arrow Volume 1, Issue 1 September 2012
Volume 1, Issue 1 September 2012

Top companies do regular reviews and assessments of all employees. At GE, employees get divided into three groups based on their potential. At Hindustan Unilever, people who show leadership potential are put on a list (and referred to as "listers").

How do you Retain your Top Employees?

Identify your Top Players

Top companies do regular reviews and assessments of all employees. At GE, employees get divided into three groups based on their potential. At Hindustan Unilever, people who show leadership potential are put on a list (and referred to as "listers").

Listen and Provide feedback

Mangers more than often not just listen to their employees and collect data and results from them; they also provide constant feedback about their performance. This is very enriching for top employees. Feedback has to be constructive covering both positive and negatives. Build in a constant feedback element into your organizational culture.

Personal Involvement

Every employee appreciates the manager's personal interest in their growth trajectory. Top performers thrive on this.

Talk to your key performers and understand their aspirations as well as any weak area that may debilitate them from achieving their goals.

Capacity Building

Offsite training programmes contribute to skill development; increase employee morale and enhance team-working spirit..

Companies could also sponsor top performing employees membership in industry associations and have them take advantage of training opportunities, conferences and seminars. If they want to pursue additional skill building courses companies could offer them flexible hours or time off when needed to study or otherwise make it easier for them to achieve.

These gestures will seldom go unnoticed by your top employees who will pledge their commitment to your organization.

Brand Building during Recession

During an economic slowdown, most companies cut their budgets and retain spending only for hygiene costs. In such times, it is not uncommon to find companies who regard advertising as a wasteful, unnecessary expenditure. But consider this - if you in fact cut your marketing budget, how will your consumers find you?

Now, it is a well-known fact that advertising during recession is a smart thing, maybe even a mandatory thing to do. Following the U.S. Stock Market crash of 1987, Nike tripled its marketing spend and emerged from the recession with profits nine times higher than going in. Taco Bell and Pizza Hut also took advantage of this recession, promoting themselves heavily, while the market leader McDonald's, cut back. This investment paid off by significantly narrowing McDonald's category lead. Hence the long term benefits of sustaining advertising during tough times far outweigh the possible short term benefit of saving money. The key however is to know your consumer. Know them inside and out. Know what they think and know where they are. Know how these economic times are hitting them. Create your message around that pain. Reach out to them.

Are you finding it difficult to concentrate on your core competence due to time consuming and voluminous activities?

Contact us at KenServe and we will support you with solutions for Outsourcing, Staffing, Audit & Compliance. At KenServe, we strive to provide the best suited & custom made solutions for your organization and support you in your journey of growth and success.

Through this monthly edition of 'Corporate Wisdom', KenServe wishes to reach out to all its partners and share interesting reads that will encourage useful conversations and discussions. We also wish to inform our staff and our partners of our recent developments and events.

Motivating Your Team

"If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don't have to manage them." Jack Welch

In the above quote, Jack Welch talks about giving an employee the right opportunity which can make management effortless. In order to do this; you have to understand your employees and motivate them equally. Employee Motivation is a critical component for an organization's success.

In his new book, Drive, Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, describes what he says is "the surprising truth" about what motivates people. Pink says that true motivation boils down to three elements: Autonomy, the desire to direct our own lives; Mastery, the desire to continually improve at something that matters to us, and Purpose, the desire to do things in service of something larger than ourselves.

Team members work effectively when they are motivated and become diffi-cult when they are not. Managers need to understand what motivates difficult team members and their own role in motivating or demotivating them. Employee Motivation cannot be a one time act or reserved for a particular day of the week. It has to be a constant process.

Points to Remember:

  • Go on walkabouts, ask questions and listen to your employees
  • Acknowledge a job done well as this is the best way of reinforcing quality work and efficiency
  • Be inclusive and ask for inputs to decisions that affect the team
  • Share information; this will enable your employees to think and contribute like stakeholders
  • Celebrate good news and team achievements
  • Play to employees strengths, promote high performance and focus on how they learn
 

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