Engaging Your People for Success with Lisa Askwith

Retain Your People Part 1 (EP 13)- ‘Why am I losing so many Great people?’ Healthy habits to retain your people.

Have you reviewed your business in the context of what you people actually want?

The new generations of workers are value focussed. They want to be valued, and be able to give value. Has your business adapted and developed ways to incorporate this critical need into the way your strategy, structure and culture handle this? IF not you are missing out and will not be achieving the level of success needed to understand what you people want and and offering it. Instead you will be losing great people.

The 4 key needs to address are;

Value creation Skill development Workplace ethics Leadership ability

These all come before salary considerations- is your workplace able to adapt to the new needs?

Most businesses and leaders need help to really see this key area with ‘fresh eyes’. If you have reached this point do contact me directly at [email protected] for a free no obligation discussion of just where you are and how we may be able to help.

To build your Culture and Strategy to become symbiotic is key to your long term business successes and hence sustainability. However, many businesses overlook this key next step. Don't let your business suffer, take the next step and build sustainability too!

Mark Emmer, gave a fantastic overview of 10 key steps to a killer strategy, and it allows me to add what that means for your culture, so you can ensure the 2 are working together symbiotically, and you achieve business sustainability; these were

1. Develop a true vision.

Culture- make sure the vision is more than a document on the wall it must be living and breathing- KPI’s, rewards, internal documents, JD’s it must be talked about and interwoven through all of this, and include behavioral aspects

2. Define competitive advantage.

Culture- Are you people able to raise their voice and add to this. Has this been expanded beyond the leadership team- use your greatest asset, your people to help you here and you will see your culture grow symbiotically with your business plan/strategy.

3. Define your targets.

Culture- Are your targets communicated to everyone? Or is it just sales? If you want to build a culture that everyone can feel proud of they need to be connected to the overall objectives too. How are the rest of your people encouraged and engaged to help drive these targets, are they recognised? You need more than sales targets controlled by sales people to generate a culture across the business, others need to be engaged too. This can be key parts of their KPI’s, special projects or shared work. All will help your culture evolve and be supported by your strategy.

4. Focus on systematic growth.

Culture- This is a key culture builder that drives synergy. You can gain so much from your strategy supporting your culture on this point, do not miss it in your business!!!! You people are your greatest asset, so make sure you allow them to show that. They have some much experience and many ideas that are easily overlooked that if harnessed can lead to massive gains for any business. Allow your people to help drive your growth, have a shadow board, allow for working teams, source new ideas from the floor and support them through leadership and working teams, have agile focus groups, have new idea focus groups, rotate these, the list goes on.

5. Make fact-based decisions.

Culture- Allow and expect your people to present facts, develop them to look for the right data, have appropriate training courses available, have appropriate resources available, teach agile thinking. Build all of this into your strategy.

6. Think long term.

Culture- Set agile quarterly reviews, develop an agile mindset through training and encourage your people to challenge assumptions and reset as often as needed. Remove excuses and embrace change. Encourage change and remove fear from speaking up. Develop your leaders through agile training and ensure they are also trained as coaches, and your culture will blossom being supported by all these points being embedded in your strategy.

7. But, be nimble.- Agility is key

Culture- Make Agility a core value and build it into your leadership KPI’s, this will then trickle down through the business. Support it positively and reward new ideas and change plus ensure your people are involved.

8. Be inclusive.

Culture- Make D&I a key part of your strategy, without doing this it will not live in your business. Include it in leadership KPI’s but more importantly train your leaders to not only challenge assumptions but to learn how to challenge their own fixed mindset. Train the value of mixed teams and different backgrounds. Train the value of cross functional work. Have internal metrics set up to monitor how long people stay in the same role and make sure they are trained in other areas if this passes xx years.

9. Invest time in pre-

Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability Part 3 (EP11) Strategy and Culture should be symbiotic, here's how

Have you really looked at your culture, does it match your strategy? If the answer is no, then you will run into a lot of problems that will cost your business in terms of money as well as people and innovation. Throughout this season of engaging your people for success I will talk about Culture a lot, and focus on how the leadership team can help you have one that is beneficial to your business outcomes. Culture, leadership and people are core topics that I passionately believe can make or break your business.

8 Steps to integrate culture and strategy symbiotically Use the results from your culture survey and 360 degree feedback Develop working teams to check the results ad decide on key route cause issues to work with Set in motion a culture action team and plan Strengthen all internal communications- this means open and regular, plus accessible leadership team Start a method where staff can anonymously raise issues- and have them addressed! Develop your leadership training plan- every year requirements for all senior leaders plus new leaders training. Develop a mentoring program Develop a shadow Board

Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability- Part 2 (EP10) Culture Builders- 10 steps to help your Culture

Working Teams to diagnose issues and put in place plans Leadership development that mirrors down to all staff- Are people leaders reskilling quickly enough to be relevant or are they becoming impediments of Future organizations? Company wide initiatives that involve values Regular rewards and recognition for culture initiatives and outcomes Transparent performance reviews and access to further training Open and regular communication at all levels Leaders who walk the talk and actually become involved at the ground A complete package that mirrors through from initial job training all the way through to continuous discretionary upskilling that is also tied to career development both upwards and laterally. D&I embedded to become the ‘norm’ Corporate Social Responsibility- shared and celebrated engaging everyone

INTRODUCTION Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability Part 1 (EP 9)- Did my Strategy eat my Culture?- Diagnose your pain points

So often we see the needs behind developing a positive culture that empowers people through engagement forgotten in the rush to do business and make money. Now don’t get me wrong, you definitely need to make money in the business otherwise you fail yourself and your people, but there comes a point in every business's lifecycle where the culture is critical for either long term success, improvement, or revenue generation. Typically once a business is up and running and the original founders are moving into defined roles and more employees come on board the culture really starts to solidify……..for better or worse!

Similarly in an established business, culture needs constant monitoring and engagement to keep it at a high and beneficial level……..culture whilst self-sustaining for a period of time needs exceptional leaders, and a sound long term plan to stay valuable and positive……just as a good business strategy needs constant reviews and discussion to be successful, a culture is the same. This is a key point that many business leaders miss………and hence great cultures often only last for short periods of time, as they are often sacrificed to the focus on strategy.

When I say sacrificed, I am not saying it is a deliberate shift of focus, more often than not it is an unconscious one, as the leadership team have become used to working in a great culture and don’t realise that it needs constant attention to keep it that way. When this happens people start to revert to type, and the highly driven leaders start to focus on metrics, and forget to put a similar level of focus and time into maintaining and further developing a great culture that can drive the business forward. This is when I start to see the phrase of Culture eats strategy for breakfast flip around and become strategy eats, and often steamrolls culture and leaves the business in a mess

To help diagnose the pain points in your business, review;

Disengaged staff, High staff turn over, Silo thinking and mentality, Increased sick leave, Lack of accountability, Blame culture, Bullying, Nepotism High performing staff are leaving rather than taking a promotion Long serving staff only in one part of the business No innovation Leadership has been the same for over 10 years Staff not accessing learning and development Deadlines constantly being missed or push further out No feedback from the floor- ever

2 Key tools

Use Culture Surveys and 360 degree leadership feedback to diagnose where you are now. The results from these 2 key tools will allow you to really understand the pain points, as well as identify those that may not be talked about in the open. Then you can start to understand the scope of the problem, and have the opportunity to be able to turn it around and allow your culture to once again flourish backed by a strong and supportive strategy.

5 key metrics for culture and strategy integration

There are several key metrics you need to ensure that are part of your strategy and culture continue to be aligned. Start with the basics of attrition and length of stay and then build from there to include loss past training, average length of workers across business units and compare this all to the competition. You need an industry benchmark to really help you understand where you can change effectively. .These numbers must be part of your regular leadership meetings to ensure they embed in

E7 Build your Core-Develop your People

Your people are impacted by a fast paced changing workplace, hence their needs have correspondingly changed, and will continue to evolve, so my aim is to keep you ahead of the curve by putting your people at the center of your business equation, by fully engaging them for your, and their success. This is what takes a business to the levels of great, and what I can help you achieve. You need some great people strategies in place that are backed by exceptional leaders that can take your culture to higher levels of success.

We know your people will leave you quickly today if they are not engaged, but what does this really mean for you as a business?

If you have a new hire you need to focus on engagement and development from day 1- This focus is equally important for existing staff, and if you are not doing it now, you really need to start!

Open training and development backed by a clear career path is key. This training needs to be optional, supported, and easily accessible.

To help develop your people you need your leaders support and endorsement, to help you achieve this some key tips are; Strong leadership in place that is focused on developing a support and positive people culture- regular 360 degree feedback and culture surveys Consistent and constant leadership training that reflects the company values, culture and empathic leadership Visible leaders Leaders walking the talk Available leaders- working teams can help with this A living breathing culture that is distributed through all parts of the business Regular open communication with management Regular praise and recognition from management Psychological safety Space to try new ideas and be supported Focus on developing a learning culture Transparent and clear performance management systems that allow your people to be in control of their output.

Develop low cost high impact training programs- Most of these can be done internally.

The 2 key parts of training;

Job Demands- often technical training Should support business needs and growth Should be broad where possible, Should be part of the JD steps and growth

Career Development

This should include not just the next step training but a large range of soft skills and optional training. This not only improves your people and allows them to develop, but engages them to stay.

E6- Build your Core-Develop your leaders - 3 key steps to success

Develop your leaders- a recent study by Indeed showed that only 11% of businesses felt they had a strong or very strong leadership team bench strength!!!!! This is scary- think about what this means for not just your business outcomes but for your core- your people? They simply can’t be in a great space.

When it comes to getting the people right in your business and really capitalizing on your greatest asset, there are several areas you need to address.

Part 2 is focusing on your leadership team, and what they need to be capable of to be able to actually support your people and achieve success through engaging them rather than demotivating them.

Leadership buy in and support must be created- this is key otherwise you will just be wasting your money on training programs. Use 360 degree studies and culture surveys. Next 3 key leadership development steps for any business Core behavioral skills- these are what will engage your people and start on the right footing- use Grow first, and focus in on learning the situational open questioning style

Authenticity and servant leadership. Encourage your leaders and show them how to use their ‘stories’ in order to engage your people through empathy and emotion. Move to an agile or growth mindset. Ensure you leaders are trained in an Agile or Growth mindset, this is key for success over the long term, and being able to embrace and work with change. Great news is these programs can be cascaded down the organisation and should be to really capitalise on people engagement and success.

Your leaders are also subject matter experts- use them this way and encourage them to also run their own training programs- you will be amazed at the walls this breaks down and the value it brings. Structure these core points into your KPIs, and also your vision and mission, plus behaviour goals- this is a must to ensure it is alive in your business

Put cross functional teams under the leadership KPI’s to ensure this is all kept alive in your business

What your employees want is something that often gets forgotten, or not understood in the rush to get business done, so I want to help you fix this, as without a real understanding you may build some fantastic programs for your people, but you won’t get the results you wanted, and worse still may risk disengaging them further!

To help get this right in your business,

Episode 5 focuses on what your people want, followed by 3 more parts to build your core;

Develop your leaders Develop your People Ensure your strategy and culture are Symbiotic not cannibalistic!

We have several generations to work with, baby boomers, generation x and generation z, with differing needs, however the great news is that being able to meet the transparency, accountability and lifestyle needs of gen z will actually benefit all generation of workers, as all workers actually enjoy the outcomes of this focus, and benefit from the programs offered to meet it.

So what are we really looking for when we consider the future workforce? Firstly they are value based and this means they want to receive value as well as be able to give it.

Key Areas to consider;

New value based workforce emerging and growing. Mass disruptions from Covid to WFH to AI. Change has become a constant. How you deal with this from a value creation point of view is key- you need to embrace and support change and help your people get to that point too. Establish a learning culture and mindset for and with your people. No longer after jobs for life- more flexible and the GiG economy is calling Need to upskill regularly, and want to do that. Won’t tolerate disrespect, like the past- They want acceptance, support and respect. Corporate Social Responsibility is gaining importance, and is now a requirement. Engagement is key- without it they will leave. Performance reviews need to change and embrace the new workforce. Access to supported learning and development is critical. Autonomy backed by rewards and recognition need to be part of the people strategy. Exit interviews are a must, but they must be run by HR. Your leadership team needs to be upskilled to support and drive all of this.

E8 Build your Core-Ensure your strategy and culture are Symbiotic not cannibalistic! - 4 steps to successful integration

To build your core you need to set a true playing field for success. So in part 1 we looked at understanding that your people want and structuring accordingly, in part 2 and 3 we looked at developing your leaders, the crucial link for success and then developing your people. Now we need to further strengthen your playing field for success and ensure your culture is not only positive but that it works with not against your strategy.

Step 1

Use Culture Surveys and 360 degree leadership feedback to diagnose where you are now

Must be synergistic for success- review your culture now, really ask what it is, does it exist, is it positive……or is it something you prefer not to think about….if that’s the case then you need to start looking more deeply, and thinking about if a culture survey is needed to really start to dig into the problems.

If your culture and strategy diverge, it does untold damage, as you will find the core of your people live in the culture piece and are influenced by it strongly. Your leadership team lives mostly in the strategy piece. So you can see if your leaders are focussing on strategy and it does not match your culture you are going to have a massive problem with getting anything done, and particularly with getting it done well or in a way that allows the company to excel and fight off the competition.

Step 2

Set up your key indicators to diagnose where the issues are in conjunction with the results from Step 1

1- Exit interviews 2- Staff turn over 3- Length of average staff stay 4- Length of stay post training 5- Leadership feedback 6- Culture feedback 7- Have anonymous feedback channel

Step 3

Clarify the issues and plan solutions

1- Gain agreement from the leadership team on exact issues 2- Fact check these issues with a working group from the people in the business 3- Compare the answers for both and decide on the most pressing issues to solve 4- Set up working teams from across the business with only 1 or 2 leadership members to help support and carry through recommendations 5- Make these 3 monthly rolling projects and drive success.

Step 4

1- Make culture review part of the leadership team's responsibility and KPIS 2- Culture must be part of the quarterly leadership reviews- including the key indicators from Step 2 3- Consider a yearly culture initiative run by a working team form across the business 4- Ensure culture needs are embedded in all documentation and strategy

Shows ● Previous: Episode 1 Season 7 - Recruitment 101- Engaging your People for Success ● Next: Episode 3 Season 7- Strategy and Culture Alignment for Business Sustainability- Engaging your People for Success Written by Lisa Askwith

Director of ApexBRS | ApexBRS, Regional Director of See Global Media, Chair of EGN Singapore, and Associate Professor Cambridge Corporate University | At the Age of Change, providing the HR component of the Global Executive MBA and BBA. Lisa has worked for some of the largest companies in the world and successfully led restructures and change management programs in order to improve the bottom line through engaging the people for success, while developing exceptional leaders who can make a positive impact on Culture and long term business sustainability.

You can connect with Lisa on any of her platforms

LinkedIn Lisa Askwith - Director - Apex BRS https://www.apexbrs.com/ https://www.facebook.com/ApexBRS Shows Subscribe to Engaging Your People for Success podcasts To Book a free 45 Minute Discovery call- https://calendly.com/lisa-apexbrs/45min To Book a 1 hour Consultation call- https://calendly.com/lisa-apexbrs/consultation-call

Segment 4​​ - Onboarding and Induction- Recruitment does not end at the job offer 

Onboarding

Once you have made it through the recruitment process and selected your new staff member, how you handle onboarding will play a massive part in if the person stays with the business and is successful. Of particular note is that every step of onboarding should be clear and agreed on by the hiring manager and the new employee, and this should be documented and signed against by both. Just like the hiring manager should run every step of the recruitment process.

Good Onboarding/ Induction plan

• Done by the hiring manager- like recruitment
• Clear weekly agenda
• Time spent with the person to ensure any required training is clear and being utilized
• Hiring manager to review all training with the new employee as it is finished/passed
• Clear program set out for the entire length of probation, and run by the hiring manager- milestones, expectations and meetings
• For the first week, the hiring manager should meet with the new employee daily at a minimum.
• For the entire length of probation the program should ensure the new employee has weekly meetings with the new manager to review their feelings of settling in, success, training, needs, and general work ability. As the new employee displays the appropriate skills and attitudes these meeting can become less formal, and if probation is to last for 6 months then the last 3 months may just be a monthly meeting
• Fixed probation review meeting with workplace expectations that are clear and able to be reviewed.
• Clear objectives 
• Most importantly- document everything!!!!

Great on boarding by and actively involved hiring manager- can stop mistakes too, not just keep great people

An open and clear Career plan backed up by accessible and relevant training will help keep your great people for as long as possible