My 4 Top Tips for Creating a Great Place to Work in 2022
2021: The Great Resignation
Since the pandemic, employees are leaving the workforce or switching jobs in what some economists are calling the ‘Great Resignation’.
There are a number of reasons people have made the decision to leave their employment:
Some reassessed their lives during the pandemic and are now focusing on what they believe is important to them and their families
For others the decision to leave came as a result of how they were treated at work during the pandemic.
With so much disruption coming from the pandemic individuals have been re-evaluating what really matters to them.
2022: The Year of the Employee
The Korn Ferry Future of work trends 2022: A new era of humanity, suggests that 2022 to be the year of the employee.
If you want to maintain or improve business performance by attracting and maintaining top talent, there are 4 things you need to focus on in 2022:
1. Sense of purpose
Research found that 70% of employees said that their sense of purpose is defined by their work. Employees expect their jobs to bring a significant sense of purpose to their lives and if this need is met, they are 2.6 times more likely to want to stay.
As a leader you play an important part in helping your employees discover their purpose and enable them to live it.
Start with clearly defining your organisation’s purpose, discover what really matters to individuals and then deliver on these.
2. Develop leaders
The Korn Ferry Future of work trends 2022: A new era of humanity, report highlights that leaders that have the emotional intelligence to connect with people on different channels will be essential.
Emotionally Intelligent leaders understand their own and other people’s emotions and have the ability to use emotional information to guide how they think, respond and behave.
Consider tools such as Thomas International’s TEIQue to help individuals understand how they manage their emotions, interpret and deal with the emotions of others and use this knowledge to manage relationships.
3. Develop a culture of trust and inclusion
An Officevibe pulse survey found that 55% of employees claim to strongly trust their manager, however just 1 in 3 feel that their manager fully understands their day-to-day reality.’
A McKinsey & Company survey found that 51% of those that quit their jobs recently did so because they didn’t feel a sense of belonging and 52% didn’t feel valued by their managers.
Leaders need to create the conditions for psychological safety, encouraging everyone to bring their whole selves to work, being comfortable expressing themselves and creating a non-judgmental and compassionate environment where everyone’s differences and talents are valued.
Google’s project Aristotle identified 5 characteristics of high performing teams. Of the five, psychological safety was by far the most important and underpinned the other four.
4. Put employee wellbeing centre stage
Wellbeing is becoming a make or break issue for employees. A recent Korn Ferry study highlighted that 89% of professionals feel they are suffering from burnout and 81% say they are more burned out now than they were at the start of the pandemic.
Employers that don’t provide meaningful support for wellbeing will find performance decreasing, absence and staff turnover levels increasing and it will become more difficult to recruit the talent they need.
Supporting your team to develop their psychological flexibility will help to ‘loosen up’ those that are stuck, struggling or disgruntled while enabling them to move forward with their own obstacles and challenges. When we are psychologically flexible, we notice more and have more options and choices to consider.
And finally
If you would like to talk through how to make your workplace a great place to be, click here to book a complimentary discovery call.
