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Are Employee Development Programs Undermining Operational Excellence?

Recent years drove most organizations through tremendous turmoil, whether sending employees home for remote work, laying off (or losing) employees, or hiring large numbers of employees as some companies experienced rapid growth. Through 2021 and early 2022, most organizations were experiencing a large amount of employee churn—what became known as the Great Resignation or the Great Reshuffle—all while the economy began to bounce back. The outcome for many businesses was an atmosphere of firefighting–a maddening pattern driven by reactionary and urgent response to issues while also trying to get more done with fewer and less experienced people. A case can be made: to get our operations under control and reduce firefighting, we must reduce employee churn and implement plans for better employee development and advancement.

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How to Stop “Firefighting”: Part 2

Even with hopes that the pandemic is over, managers, supervisors, and employees at all levels continue to report firefighting at a larger scale than ever before. By firefighting, I mean work that is reactionary, urgent—dealing with issues that are not what would be thought of as ordinary work. In fact, firefighting has become so prevalent, some organizations have difficulty separating the “ordinary, standard work” from the reactionary work. There are several contributing causes: the “Great Resignation” left us with fewer employees, resignations continue, skilled employees are hard to find, processes without PM are now running to failure, recruiting is more competitive, and newly hired employees (and newly promoted front line leaders) lack adequate technical and process knowledge.

How can your organization start making the shift away from firefighting toward more sustainable workloads and the work of ordinary business? Fortunately, the solutions for firefighting also provide the foundation to addressing the tide of resignations. [Read more…]

Four Steps to Stop Firefighting

In 2022, leaders across industries seem to have one thing in common: they report that their organizations are spending more time firefighting than ever before. A prevailing reactionary culture has emerged, born of the business climate of the past three years. In that time we’ve seen shutdowns, layoffs, large scale resignations, wildly changing employee expectations, supply chain challenges, interest rate hikes, and rising costs of attracting and retaining employees. The list goes on and on. Many organizations are still understaffed at several levels of the hierarchy and the resignation environment continues to disrupt progress. A large percentage of front line workers are new, and due to inexperience, there may be only so much they can do without strong guidance. Key staff supporting positions are also understaffed, including IT, Maintenance, and Engineering departments—all contributing to an atmosphere of intense firefighting. How can you reduce or eliminate firefighting and get back to more purposeful work?

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6 Keys for Implementing Successful Change

Whether you are embarking on a major change initiative such as restructuring an organization or location, implementing a Safety Program, or making smaller changes like process improvement or other activities, there are six keys for aligning important factors to make the change successful. And if you’re missing just one piece, you may be undermining your success. [Read more…]

3 Steps for Developing Managers as Coaches

A friend and fellow consultant recently spoke to a large group of CEOs at a Denver conference. The presentation focused on key ways to combat “The Great Resignation” since experts say that it will continue through 2022. He made the point that the employees of 2022 hold very different expectations from those of 2019 and early 2020—employees expect greater work flexibility, less burnout, and better relationships with managers. Employers need to adapt. He said his presentation did not go over too well. The CEOs argued that “sooner or later the employees will be back; they have to make a living.” Aside from incorrectly assuming that their former employees were not working and had not moved on to better employers, these meeting participants were not heeding the reality that employees expect better work environments.

To meet the demands of changing work expectations, many organizations are improving their organizational climates in order to recruit and better retain employees. To fulfill this need, organizations are focusing on re-tooling their managers as coaches. There are three steps:

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Employee Burnout: How Employers are Getting it Wrong

The world of work has changed over the past two years. Some organizations adapted well by adopting technology with urgency to support employees and workflows, by developing more compassionate leadership practices, and by reducing or eliminating micromanagement. Some organizations did not.

We are in the midst of the “Great Resignation,” and experts predict that it is not done yet—that 2022 will see more resignations, especially among Millennials and Gen Z-ers. Employees are leaving their employers, citing lack of flexible work, lack of advancement opportunity, and burnout as key reasons. And as more employees leave, remaining employees are being pushed to the max.

In response, and in an effort toward retention, many organizations have largely addressed burnout and dissatisfaction by providing employees with tools, technologies, training, and employee benefits to help employees strengthen coping skills. These tools and benefits are not a bad idea; however, many organizations are missing the mark if that’s all they’re doing. Organizations should focus primarily on identifying what they are doing to cause burnout.

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2 Steps to Curtail the Great Resignation

2 Steps to Curtail the Great Resignation – by Verna Lynch and Mackenzie Childs

In 2021, millions of Americans quit their jobs in what has been called the Great Resignation. If we’re hoping that 2022 may give us a respite, we need to think again. Based on a recent CareerArc/Harris Poll, 2022 will see even more resignations, with the lion’s share of them predicted to come in the first quarter.

If you’re like us, articles have been flooding your inbox with solutions to the mass exodus—many including great ideas—from improving employee engagement, re-recruiting your employees, and providing more mental health benefits or more flexible work, to improving your organizational culture. But how do you know these ideas will work for your organization? And if you do them all, won’t you be trying to juggle too many priorities? If you work to improve your culture, how will that help you immediately because culture change takes time. What can you do? [Read more…]

4 Steps to Intentional Strategy for 2022

The past two years have led organizations through one disruption after another. Leaders often felt that proactive planning and decision making were made impossible by the roller coaster events surrounding COVID-19. Now, nearly two years into the epidemic, we are seeing a new variant and some states are reinstating earlier mandates. More than ever, proactive planning around strategy and execution is vitally important. Customers, suppliers, stakeholders, and employees at all levels of the organization are in dire need of sound organizational direction and stability to replace the unavoidable reactive practices of 2020 and 2021. For 2022 planning and beyond, there are 4 questions we should be asking to help build an intentional strategy. [Read more…]

Do you have a two-class organization?

It’s no secret that the last two years have been challenging for employers. Early in the pandemic, all businesses except essential businesses were required to shut down. Then as COVID continued, and various states had widely varying standards for workplaces, many organizations had some or all employees working remotely, and essential workers continued to work on premises. As the COVID environment wore on, many organizations had some employees work from home and some come to the workplace, and it made sense. However, in implementing these survival measures and allowing greater flexibility for employees, did we set the stage for two classes of employees; and if so, what can we do about it? [Read more…]

Gaining an Advantage in Recruiting and Retention

Many employers are reeling from the high number of resignations and the unprecedented difficulty of hiring new employees. It’s a “seller’s market” out there for hiring and retaining employees, and those employees are making organizations pay. Over the past two years, employees learned a great deal about themselves, their families, and their needs for work-life balance. They have demands that we must meet if we want to attract and retain them, and in many cases the competition for employees is unrelenting. [Read more…]

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