During the recent Great Resignation, 47 million people quit their jobs, a trend fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. While that turnover has slowed, research firm Gallup says certain shifts since then have left employees feeling disconnected from employers.
Those shifts include new expectations around work flexibility, an emotional distance created by hybrid or remote work, rapid organizational change, disjointed performance management practices and changes in customer expectations. This feeling of discontent, which Gallup calls the “Great Detachment,” overall can equate to less productivity, future talent loss and less buy-in to organizational changes.
But the good news is companies have the opportunity to create more engagement when they create cultures of investing in their people, including developing tomorrow’s leaders from within their organizations.
Developing future leaders
Whether the factors are COVID, generational shifts or general uncertainty about the state of the world, “employees are wanting something more from their jobs — it’s not a paycheck anymore,” says Steve Baue, an executive leadership coach and owner of ERC: Counselors and Consultants. “They want purpose; they want meaning; they want to feel they’re contributing. At the same time, they also don’t want work to be the center of their universe.”
At the same time, “employers have never been particularly good at tying employees to a larger purpose and explaining to an employee why their job is valuable, why there’s meaning to it, how it impacts others inside and outside the organization,” Baue says.
While there will always be employees who just “want to watch the world burn,” you can get most engaged by connecting those dots for them. “And if you want to see magic happen, you invest in them with no strings tied to it,” Baue says.
As an example, Baue once worked with a company that offered a free onsite MBA program.
The very act of investing in the employee means you’ll have a more engaged employee immediately, he says.
Keeping high performers engaged
Vicki Updike, owner of professional leadership development company New Sage Strategies and founder of the annual Women’s Leadership Conference, works with a variety of clients, including those who were recently promoted, stepped into new roles, or who feel stuck and want to be more impactful at work.
Company leaders can help keep their high performers engaged by being proactive and entering in genuine discussions about what those employees would like to see happen in their careers. “We put our own perceptions on things all the time,” she says. “But when it comes to leading people, you should validate and make sure that your perceptions are not misguiding you.”
Asking questions is arguably even more important when the employee is in a historically marginalized group, including women and minorities.
“There’s a level of unconscious bias that is very visible to those that have walked through it,” Updike says. In a meeting, that might look like women getting interrupted more than men, which research shows happens even on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Companies that are reflective about inclusivity and develop talent from a diverse pool of potential leaders can help those employees believe in the company and feel engaged. At the same time, the company has the benefit of their ideas, perspectives and potential pathways to greater success.
“If your pipeline development is made up of people that look like your current leadership, and it’s being based on the same principles that your current leadership is using, then you are going to get the exact same outcome,” Baue says.
Company leaders can help by not sidestepping conversations and being “intentionally curious to support your people and the development of your culture and your strategic initiatives,” Updike says.
Investing in leadership development
In recent years, there’s been an increase in ‘accidental managers,’ those with no training for a given role. A recent Fortune article highlighted a Chartered Management Institute survey showing this is leading to job dissatisfaction, with one in three of the 2,018 surveyed workers already having left a job because of a decline in management quality.
While some of this is due to the pandemic, it’s also been happening since there haven’t been enough Gen Xers to fill the leadership roles created as boomers retire. That means millennials are getting pulled into leadership positions sooner than any other generations, Baue says.
Karen Lancelle, executive vice president & chief commercial officer at Schreiber Foods, says her company has invested strongly in continual development, particularly during the past few years. “Our CEO [Ron Dunford] is super passionate about this, and I think that’s got to be a driving force behind any organization, because it absolutely is an investment,” Lancelle says.
That investment is valuable because it leads to higher performance “and I think companies that invest in people development will see a benefit in improved financial performance, less employee turnover, higher workforce culture and employee engagement,” she says.
Lancelle says the company focuses on learning at all levels, “from the front-line leader within our plant floor to the CEO.” Development plans are targeted to particular departments and levels to make them highly purposeful, she says. Schreiber’s training includes online self-guided and virtual programs as well as in-person training, mentorship, sponsorship and networking.
Lancelle, who has been with Schreiber for 25 years, says she’s seen perspectives toward training evolve. “I think that old belief was ‘my company is sending me to this training because I have a gap,’ and I think the new belief is ‘my company is sending me to this training because they want to invest in me; they believe in me; they’re supporting me.’”
That means the workforce becomes motivated, energized and refreshed, leaving with new tools to make them more effective in their roles, she says.
Schreiber also has partnered with UW-Green Bay to support the Schreiber Institute for Women’s Leadership.
“There are specific topics that we know that women need to continue to advance their career, and so our development program is super customized and very purposeful for that level for that role,” Lancelle says. “Because of that, that is one of the reasons why our partners are very engaged and motivated.”
Finding motivation
Pa Lee Moua, executive director of the Schreiber Institute for Women’s Leadership, says an overall feeling of detachment has to do with “the culture of an organization as well as the sense of motivation. I am someone who firmly does believe that we are humans and we evolve and we are motivated in different ways.”
And that motivation evolves as people progress in their careers, which workers can lose sight of, causing a sense of disconnect. So it’s important for employees to understand how their own needs are changing.
“I think having a space where you are coming to a conversation and listening to other women as they’re going through different motions, life changes and trials and tribulations does help you put a different perspective on things,” Moua says. Plus, you’re “gaining different resources and outlets for you to be able to reflect where you’re at in life and reframe the different aspects of what motivates you.”
Companies that are prioritizing people over profits are getting it right, Moua says. But it’s about really knowing your people — including their values, what personally motivates them, what their strengths are, where they want to grow and improve.
“If you don’t know the people that you work with, you’re not going to be able to build a sense of trust, and trust really is critical,” Moua says. Employees who trust their leaders will more readily accept feedback, for example. And when there’s a trust in leaders, “then they trust in the culture and the organization because the employees and the team feel valued.”
