BOOK SUMMARY 320
Retain and Gain
·
Summary written by: Sara
Saddington
“Employees
need to have a broader understanding of their own career, while Owners and
Managers need to motivate, challenge and support employees as they grow. How
these needs are identified, met and measured in large part defines the culture
of your company.”
- Retain and Gain, page 14
Retain and Gain: Career
Management for Small Businesses by Lisa Taylor is a
practical, hands-on manual for organizations and managers seeking strategies to
keep their employees engaged and excited in their work through better career
management. Career management is a tricky subject for many managers, as it
requires open conversations about the long term goals of employees, which may
not be related to the organization. As a result, many people simply ignore this
crucial component of engaging with their teams. It’s hard to hear that your
exciting new hire has a long-term plan to work in a different industry, or
achieve a level of success that won’t be available to them via your
organization. It’s even harder to create a culture where employees feel
comfortable sharing those goals without being worried about being penalized for
them. Retain and Gain offers highly actionable tactics to help
managers and organizations develop a career management strategy that will
result in a more engaged workforce. Laid out as a travel guide, and spanning a
slim 60 pages, this book is a perfect companion for even the most time starved
managers.
The
Golden Egg
Tactics
that Fit Your Schedule
"But we all know
that the most rewarding part of preparing for a trip occurs once the itinerary
is set and the planning is done; when you know what to expect and can focus on
how to make an already great schedule a terrific experience."- Retain and
Gain, page 20
Once you’ve decided to
embark on a career management journey, it’s time to choose your tactics. For
busy managers (which, let’s be honest, is almost all of them), it can be
challenging to fit career management into a hectic schedule. Taylor maps out
three paths, depending on how much time you have. Here are a few of my favorite
ideas:
If you’ve got 10 minutes:
Call in a team member for a chat that is not related to checking in on projects
or daily updates. Talk candidly about what they are thinking about and
interested in, both personally and professionally. This is an opportunity to
establish candor, and learn a bit more about your team. The more you know about
the people working with you, the better you will be able to support their
long-term goals for their careers.
If you’ve got an hour:
Share an article or tool that focuses on soft skills that will help your team
achieve their goals. You could also share a TedTalk or other online video, or a
podcast episode. Spend an hour chatting with your team about how they can apply
those principles to their work, or to their long-term goals. Encourage team
members to share their knowledge and skills with each other.
If you’ve got a half day:
Create a detailed plan for how you will support your team moving forward. While
financial incentives are powerful motivators, there are many other
opportunities that you can provide that will help them develop their skills,
boost their credibility, and contribute to the team in new ways. Attending an
industry conference, going on a trip, being publicly recognized for their work,
or being given opportunities to work on challenging new projects are all highly
motivating tactics to keep employees engaged and progressing toward their
goals.
Gem #1
Stop
Trying to Provide Stairs
"10 years ago
[careers were like] stairs, but now people can have so many careers it’s hard
to say but a trip or a journey best describes it.”"- Retain and Gain, page
16
The landscape of work has
shifted dramatically in recent years—there is no longer an expectation for
employees to work their way up through an organization in a linear fashion. Of
course, employees want to be compensated fairly, and they want to feel a sense
of progression in their careers, but it’s not as simple as a straight line up.
More and more, people are
seeking work that has meaning, that makes them feel engaged and challenged, and
that encourages them to contribute to something greater than themselves. Having
a clear career management strategy will help you retain staff—people will no
longer feel that they need a new position to be challenged or valued.
One great way to do this
is allow staff to move between departments. Ask a member of the marketing team
to sit in on an sales meeting. Ask your financial controller with a writing
hobby to look over new copy. Not only is asking for input an easy way to make
people feel heard and valued, it can also strengthen your results by taking
into account new perspectives.
Gem #2
Recognize
that Employees are People
"Employee engagement
is a way to express how invested your staff
are, personally,
in the success of the business. We assert that there is nothing more personal
than each employee’s individual career. More than one-off rewards or
team-building exercises, focusing on your team’s careers ensures that your business
will succeed because they’ve succeeded."- Retain and Gain, page 7
Business owners and team
leaders are rightly focused on deliverables—there’s a lot to manage in the
day-to-day hustle. However, to nurture engaged employees, you also need to
recognize your team members as humans, who have more going on in their lives
than you are aware of. Taylor offers some great insight into how to handle
career management for organizations that have lost staff, are worried about
succession planning, and for staff dealing with large life events that require
leaves of absence.
The key to managing these
circumstances is to have regular, candid conversations with your team about
what’s going on in their lives and how you can support them. Having an ill
parent is difficult enough—adding in an employer or manager who is
unsympathetic can be unbearable. Recognizing that your teams are people, with
complex struggles and desires, is a great first step to creating engaged and
loyal employees. Supporting a team member through a personal crisis isn’t just
the decent thing to do—it’s a sound investment that will help you retain top
performers (to include a personal example, a former manager once told me that
the death of my grandmother was “really bad timing for her.” I can say with
certainty that I was less engaged, and less loyal after that). Be supportive
and understanding of difficult circumstances—your employees are sure to
appreciate it.
Career management is
often perceived as difficult for business owners and managers, but it doesn’t
have to be. Furthermore, it’s a sound investment that can help keep employees
engaged—which moves the needle on just about any business metric you care to
measure. For career management to be effective, organizations need to establish
a culture that values candor, transparency, and frequent conversations. If your
team doesn’t feel safe sharing their long term goals and personal interests,
you will struggle to make progress. Retain and Gain will arm
you with the tools you need to embark on your career management journey.
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