Focus on engagement and retention

- Employee engagement is a hot topic. Tell an executive that you have a plan to increase employee engagement and you'll get their attention. That's because companies that have engaged employees achieve 23% greater performance against their revenue expectations than others. There's a strong connection between having engaged employees and business outcomes such as revenue growth, productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction, and yet 50% of employees are not engaged.

So, the question is, how can you increase employee engagement as part of your talent management strategy? Engaged employees are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work. They also invest more time, creativity, and energy into the organization. The best place to start building employee engagement is with your employee onboarding program. First impressions matter. A recent study found that organizations lose one in six of their new hires during the first six months.

You want the great people you've just hired to have a motivating onboarding experience that helps set them up for success and solidifies their commitment to the company. Create a motivating and inspiring first day or first week. Teach new hires about your company's mission, culture, vision, and goals. Share customer stories and success stories about individuals and teams. Then, provide a long term onboarding program that's tailored to the first 30, 60, and 90 days of a new hire's experience.

A clear onboarding plan will outline who they should meet, what information they need to know, what training to attend, and what key experiences they need to be productive quickly. A new hire's direct manager should be in charge of the onboarding plan and needs to make sure the employee has clear direction and the tools and information they need to be successful. The most important part of the first 30 days is to help employees fully understand their role and how the contribute to the big picture goals of the organization.

New hires want to know what's expected of them, how they'll deliver, and how their performance will be measured. And a great onboarding experience will increase employee performance by 11%, so it's worth the investment. The second way to increase employee engagement is to focus on career development. Employees join a company because they want to be successful, contribute to your organization, and they want the opportunity to grow and advance.

One of the top three reasons employees leave an organization is that they feel career advancement opportunities aren't available to them. As soon as an employee joins the organization, start talking about possible advancement and career opportunities. Outline what types of training and development are available and how they can take on new experiences and build new skills. Make an action plan that outlines what an individual can do to progress towards their career goals.

Make sure all of your employees understand what it takes to move into a higher role in the organization. And be sure to include career development as part of their annual goals. That's an employee engagement plan that improves retention and gets results.