Courage is the will to go beyond one’s fears.
In this article, let’s look at strategies for:
- Keep your employees
- Recruit consciously to avoid losing your employees
- … and feel better!
Do you have the courage to make the effort to keep your employees?
The question seems trivial? The reality is that most leaders:
- are overloaded;
- lack management tools to manage their time, priorities, have difficult conversations and delegate;
- want to do well!
And so good practices for onboarding, onboarding, socializing, and performance management are not being executed as they could be.
To avoid losing your employees, spend more time onboarding, socializing, and managing performance.
Here’s how to do it:
1- Welcome a person
Whether the person has little or a lot of experience, the same is true: spend time with the person to get to know each other, give goals for the first day, week, month, quarter and year. If you don’t spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day for the first week and then at least 1 hour a week in general, you don’t spend enough time with the person. In the case where you manage more than 6 people, it may be more difficult to spend 1 hour per week with each one, that said, I invite you to think differently: what would it give you to spend more quality time with each person in terms of priority management, project risk management, Motivation and commitment? If you’re not sure how much time to spend depending on the person, I talked about it in this article.
2- Integrate and socialize
Luckily, you’re not alone. Be creative and introduce the new person to employees to meet so that they can train and learn about the company’s culture.
You could have a great reception team and each one has a particular role: one reference for the administrative side, another for the technical side, the other for culture, etc. In addition, quickly meet the whole team to socialize. For example: a lunch, a lunch (even virtual) or a team building activity. (If you’re lacking inspiration, we’ve got a Team building activity in partnership with Randolph Animation!)
3- Manage performance
Don’t be afraid to manage performance to avoid losing people! Did you know that most people would rather be told what they need to improve than not be told anything? Failure to manage performance can have the following consequences:
- Discredit yourself as a leader because the other members of the team can see that you are not managing performance.
- To make a person believe that they are doing the right thing, until they realize it.
- Being asked for a salary increase or a performance bonus at the annual appraisal and being very uncomfortable…
So the three keys to better manage performance:
- Give clear and aligned objectives.
- Communicate them.
- Give accurate feedback at the right time and relevant.
- Train or support to facilitate the development of key skills.
On youtube we have three videos to help you:
- #1: Manage performance in a positive way
- #2: How to Lead to Action
- #3: How to Give Effective and Caring Feedback
In order to emphasize “keeping” people, you are invited to make room for your management and leadership role.
Do you have the courage to recruit consciously?
Secondly, in these times of labour shortage, I see many leaders spending more time on recruiting than on supervising the people in place. I think you should prioritize coaching and at the same time, be clear about what you need and monitor the recruitment market (especially for growing companies!)
Let’s see how to be clear with what you need in two key points.
1. What skills do you need?
Whether your goal is to grow or increase the performance of a team, start by listing all the skills and strengths you’ll need. Too many organizations hire a position, not skills. For example : you need to recruit more project managers. Take inventory of missing skills. Need someone more outgoing than those on the job? Need to free yourself from tracking? Or someone who will be more pragmatic than analytical? Your job offer will also be more inviting: “Come and complete the team with the following skills…” etc. »
Take a step back from your needs and hire better. Don’t forget to prioritize your criteria! You should have at least 5 strengths or skills that are required.
2. How will you see that the person in front of you has these skills?
Once you have a list of what you’re looking for in terms of know-how, being and acting, take the time to find the best questions before doing the interviews. For example : Extroverted
- Step 1 : See your measure of success for this skill by asking yourself a question such as:
- What do you want to observe from an outgoing person in this position?
“I don’t want the person to be shy when it comes to getting relevant information for follow-ups.”
- What do you want to observe from an outgoing person in this position?
- Step 2 : Find the question to ask in the interview to validate your measure of success. Here are some examples:
- What’s your favorite method of getting the follow-up?
- How often do you follow up?
- What do you do with people who are having trouble responding to your follow-up requests?
And so with your skills/strengths grid, your questions and each candidate’s answers, you will be able to make a smarter selection that meets YOUR needs.
In conclusion, to avoid losing your employees
It is always better to keep people in their jobs by prioritizing management and coaching time. Yes, it takes management courage because better time management, targeting the best priorities in the short, medium and long term as well as having difficult conversations at the right time in order to avoid conflicts are key in the management skills to be developed. Finally, stay strategic in recruitment: the more you know what you need and take the time to prepare your interview questions, the more accurate and relevant your choices will be.