Making your talent feel valued- building the culture

We all hear about the great resignation and I'm sure that we all see it at play in our own businesses everyday.

So, as a leader, how do you slow it down? You won't be able to stop it!

The knee jerk reaction is to improve benefit, but in reality benefits are ticket of entry factors to employment. As an aside, I did laugh when I saw a job advert that listed a Mac Book Pro as a benefit! Its a tool to do the job not a bloody benefit!

OK, so if its not material things, how do we make our talented people feels valued to the point that they don't return that recruiters call? Well, I'm a big fan of Maslow and his theory of human motivation. Remember the hierarchy of needs?

Now apply this idea to your talent. Putting aside the basic survival tier, things like salary, benefits, working environment, a Mac Book Pro, these are all safety needs and are elements of the second tier. In today's working world, these are expected. People expect to paid what they are worth, they expect a hybrid working environment (context permitting), and yes they expect a computer to work on!

As leaders we must focus on the top tier to help deliver self actualisation. Helping people fulfill their potential, express their creativity and live their best life.

We must focus on making people belong, feel appreciated, valued as part of the team. Some businesses think that they have cracked the top tier because they have a mission statement in the foyer and values printed on laminated cards.

To influence the top tier you need to drive behavioural change. Leader's behaviour sets group behaviours, so leaders behaviour must change as the needs of the team change.

What is another name for group behaviour? Culture. So to reduce the impact of The Great Resignation, you need to ensure that your culture changes to reflect today's world.

Behavioural change is tough. It's changing how we think and act.

As leaders, we need to drive the culture by our behaviour!

by Richard Wright