Give Thanks in Your Organization- Increasing Employee Engagement & Retention

While we are in the season of giving I wanted to share my leadership change management experiences with organizations that made simple but powerfully effective changes to develop a unique culture that includes servant leadership as a core value. How many times a day does a team member or front-line staff member need to be thanked by leadership in order to feel gratitude for their work?

As Human Resource teams continue to struggle with staff and team shortages, hiring new team members that exhibit an organization’s key core values is critical for a cultural fit. As the market for talented and experienced workers decreases, the demand for the successful transition of new team members into the organizational culture increases.

According to the Harvard Business Review in an article entitled “Recruiting for Cultural Fit”, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) stated the turnover from team members with a poor culture fit can cost 50-60% of a team member’s annual salary.

The article goes on to say the core values of an organization need to set the objectives and goals of those recruiting new hires so they fit. As an example, if gratitude is a core value then asking questions in a job interview that discuss a candidate’s skill in showing gratitude and thankfulness would be helpful for culture fit.

In this post-pandemic market, the resources we utilize to hire new talent may need to be tweaked to contain questions that give opportunities for recruiters to validate a potential team member’s cultural fit.

Other opportunities may exist for organizations to develop or revisit their core values and establish those that reflect its primary purpose and mission.

See you next time for, Leadership on the GO!

Coach Denise