Uncovering the Hidden Costs of Unengaged Employees
The signs of unengaged employees can be a gradual, subtle process and cost billions of dollars a year in lost profits and wasted resources. Read our list to discover the hidden costs of unengaged employees and how they can directly affect your bottom line.
What Is Psychological Safety at Work? How to Achieve it
What makes a team effective? A few years back, that was the question plaguing Google’s leadership. When they set out to find the answer, they conducted over 200 interviews, examined 250 different attributes, and studied over 180 Google teams. But they only came up with a few answers. The first variable they identified was psychological safety. According to the Harvard Business Review, psychological safety is paramount. Team members who feel psychologically safe are risk-takers. They’re open to new ideas. They operate on a level that isn’t held back by fear, trepidation, or worry of embarrassment. If it sounds like a magical elixir, it’s because some companies find psychological safety hard to define. As author Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The same could be said for psychological safety. Let’s break down this concept to make it seem less elusive. What is psychological safety? Why is it important? And how can you bring it to how your workplace approaches its daily tasks? What is psychological safety? According to HBR, psychological safety is “the belief that you won’t be punished when you make a mistake.” Have you ever heard a teacher say, “there are no dumb questions?” Then you’ve experienced someone trying to create a psychologically safe environment. With psychological safety, the emphasis isn’t on feeling literally protected. The emphasis is on not feeling embarrassed for spitballing new ideas. Psychological safety also has a strong social component. One definition of team psychological safety is the “shared belief that people feel safe about the interpersonal risks that arise concerning their behaviors in a team context.” In short, someone who feels psychologically safe can: Perform better at work. The science shows a link between psychological safety at work and performance. This includes outcomes. Workers who felt more psychologically safe were more effective at meeting a company’s goals. Cooperate better in teams. This was a proven result in Google’s findings. Simply put, people who feel safe in their team context have more incentive to cooperate and try new ideas. Boost creativity, learning, and quality of work relationships. The mutual respect between colleagues that have psychological safety creates tangible improvements in work relationships. This has a noticeable effect on how much creativity and learning each team member is able to exercise in a work setting. What are the four stages of psychological safety? Psychological safety isn’t inherent — it’s something that’s intentionally cultivated and encouraged. Typically, that process is broken down into four distinct phases or stages. Stage #1: Inclusion safety One of our more primordial fears is being excluded from other people. That’s why stage one grants us one of these basic needs: feeling like we’re part of the group. Stage one focuses on the potential for alienation that might result from new contexts. For example, an individual suffering from “imposter syndrome” might feel that entering any new group in a work context could “out” them as not being worthy of making contributions. With “inclusion safety,” however, the individual learns that they are on equal footing with their team members. From a leader’s perspective, you’ll want to establish a sense of equality. An example of this is a TV writer’s room, wherein the “best joke”—the one that gets the most laughs—is the one that goes in, regardless of rank. Writers frequently talk about this being the case at The Simpsons. “All we had to do was please ourselves,” John Swartzwelder, famed Simpsons writer, told the New Yorker. Inclusion safety is all about cultivating that same environment, company-wide. The work, not the social hierarchy, is the true priority. The feeling of inclusion also helps avoid employee overload and encourages each employee to feel a sense of investment. Stage #2: Learner safety Learning can be a surprisingly alienating endeavor. It requires letting go of past paradigms, humbling oneself, and trying something new. It involves going out on a ledge of uncertainty—along with its requisite risks of failure—before finding out what works. For someone to feel psychologically safe at work, they also have to feel free to learn. And since failure is part of the learning process, psychological safety requires separating the perceived connection between failure and personal performance. Learning is inherently a humble mindset. It requires asking questions that feel silly or making silly mistakes. According to LeaderFactor, “Conversely, a lack of learner safety triggers the self-censoring instinct, causing us to shut down, retrench, and manage personal risk.” Stage #3: Contributor safety What could be more deflating than joining a team meeting at work, only to feel you’ve contributed nothing? Contributor safety is the feeling of active participation; that your role in the team wasn’t only necessary but helped the group achieve its goals. According to PredictiveIndex, one of the best ways to cultivate a sense of contributor safety is to highlight an employee’s past contributions. Team members also need to be a part of the decision-making process. If you asked a team for their thoughts but ultimately made your own decision, you shouldn’t be surprised if the team then feels a lack of contributor safety. It’s one thing to offer their opinion — but if their opinion changes the course of a project, it says more about your trust in them. Stage #4: Challenger safety So far, an employee should feel free to join, learn, and contribute to a team. But there’s a final stage to safety. You need the ability to challenge the existing paradigms without being thrown out of the group. On the one hand, a manager doesn’t want a mutiny on their hands. But the Harvard Business Review points to the example of Peter Isenberg, an executive at an investment bank. He noticed that workers questioned his authority less if he listened to their challenges more. “To establish his credibility,” writes HBR, “[Isenberg] adopted a hands-on approach, advising traders to close down particular positions or try different trading strategies. The traders pushed back, demanding to know the rationale for each directive. Things got uncomfortable.” HBR writes that Isenberg was eager to demonstrate his competence to establish authority. Oddly, it had the opposite effect: people didn’t feel challenger safety. But Isenberg eventually learned not to fight the instinct to challenge him. He soon saw how well things could work if he listened: “Once I stopped talking all the time and began to listen, people on the desk started to educate me about the job and, significantly, seemed to question my calls far less.” -Peter Isenberg, to the Harvard Business Review What happened? If Isenberg was willing to listen to challenges, it demonstrated the competence he’d been so eager to display. And it made people feel that their expertise, contributions, and even challenges were valued. Psychological safety was established and team harmony instantly improved. Why does psychological safety matter? According to one report, psychological safety had all sorts of positive effects, including: Increased confidence Boosts in creativity More trust between team members Improved engagement Going back to the Google study, they also found that this sense of safety was integral to the success of their groups. It was the same no matter what that group’s task was. Despite the obvious advantages of psychological safety in teams, only 47% of respondents reported they feel it at work. That means something is amiss. But what’s happening—or not happening—to create this kind of disconnect? How does psychological safety affect performance? In the report quoted above, researchers noticed a 12% boost in productivity when employees felt psychologically safe at work. But how does that work practically? How do intangible feelings of safety translate into better work? Let’s go directly to the source. A 2018 report on Humble Leadership and Psychological Safety found that this safety was essential for encouraging everyone to be at their most creative: “A work environment that is safe to take interpersonal risks and express new ideas is critical for follower creativity because the environment can motivate and increase one’s willingness to show creativity… -Frontiers in Psychology Someone who feels safe taking risks feels safe making contributions. That can apply to any type of project — creative or otherwise. A screenwriter throws out a funny line of dialogue. A mid-level manager floats an idea for a new ad campaign. An IT expert suggests changing a company’s digital infrastructure. Some of these will be bad ideas. But without a level of psychological security in place, the good ideas will go out with the bad ones. However, the benefits of psychological safety go beyond that. Feeling safe to contribute also inspires employee engagement, participation, and team trust. How to create psychological safety at work It’s easy to see how feelings like comfort and security can make the work environment a better place. But it’s also important to ask how to do it. Here are some ways you can create psychological safety at work: 1. Ensure leadership is humble No one feels safe around a tyrant. The 2018 report on Humble Leadership and Psychological Safety found a direct connection between a humble leader and psychological safety. Peter Isenberg showed this principle in action: by listening to the input of his employees, Isenberg didn’t prove himself unknowledgeable. Instead, he proved his competence as a leader. This built trust and the result was a better work environment for all parties. 2. Share knowledge Simply put: unless you’re working on the Manhattan Project, don’t keep secrets. The same report above identified “knowledge sharing as one potentially important moderating factor” for creating a sense of safety. By encouraging knowledge sharing, you’re helping people feel like they belong. The more they know about the project and its objectives, the better they’ll feel about making contributions. 3. Reward initiative A simple word or two of praise for taking the initiative can be enough. The most important thing is that someone should feel validated for having shown initiative. It can be dicey to test out a new idea or ask a new question. It inspires feelings of fear — what if people laugh at it? Learn to reward the act of initiative alone, regardless of the outcome. 4. Encourage the idea of “no bad ideas” Sure, some ideas will work better than others. Some might not work at all. But in a teamwork environment, the only bad idea is the one never voiced. The freedom to fail — to say the wrong thing — is just as important for psychological safety at work as the feeling of success. How to create psychological safety in a remote or hybrid environment Many of the same principles hold up for a remote/hybrid work environment. But when a worker is remote, their psychological safety needs can increase even if you’re doing an otherwise stellar job of team management. A good remote manager will make psychological safety a bigger priority to ensure everyone feels like they belong. 1. Make time for interpersonal connections Teams’ psychological safety doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. And it’s easy to take one-on-one conversations and eye contact for granted when you’re in an office. When someone is working from home, it’s harder to get a gauge on them. Do they feel like they belong? Do they feel psychologically safe? You can’t find out unless you make time for these interpersonal connections. Make a solid commitment to this. Open a Slack Channel that’s only for the “personal stuff.” Set a calendar reminder to ask how someone is doing. With remote work, small gestures can go a long way. 2. Don’t check in too often Resist the urge to constantly look over the remote worker’s shoulder. Trust, after all, is a two-way street. “Humble leadership” occurs when you give someone free rein to complete a task. Feel free to set big goals with realistic milestones along the way — otherwise, let your workers know that you trust them to deliver. 3. Empower them with information One of the best ways to ensure your remote team feels equipped to do their jobs is to confirm that they have all of the information, tools, and resources they need to succeed. That can feel increasingly challenging in a remote environment as updates and comments can get missed or lost in the shuffle. Centralizing your team’s communication and project management in a platform like Wrike will boost transparency and ensure that everybody can get their hands on what they need. Reduce fear and improve performance Psychological safety in teams isn’t an exact science. But it’s not something that’s totally out of your control, either. If you want your team to be both happy and high-performing (of course you do), then fostering psychological safety at work needs to be at the top of your priority list. Sign up for a free trial of Wrike to see how it can help you boost safety and comfort with every new project.
Say No to Sunday Scaries! How to Reduce Employee Churn
Employee churn has consequences beyond simply that of talent departure. Besides the actual cost of employee turnover, churn among your staff can lead to a decline in employee morale and a toxic workplace. Here’s what’s causing you to lose employees and what you can do to stop it.
Why Your Employee Morale May Be Low & What to Do About It
Employee morale is the number one contributing factor to higher engagement, productivity, and retention levels in the workplace. Here's everything you need to know to effectively boost workplace morale with your employees and make your company the best it can possibly be.
Vacay the Wrike Way
Research shows the health benefits of vacation time. But for the first time in recorded history, 55% of workers left vacation days unused. Why aren’t employees taking their paid vacations? Wrike commissioned a survey of 1,700+ U.S. respondents to understand how stress before, during, and after vacations could be the perpetrator.
Climbing the Ladder: How to Successfully Move Individual Contributors to Management Roles
How can existing managers best identify those people who should be promoted to management roles? When it comes to developing new leaders, this can undoubtedly present a challenge. Here's how to figure it out and how to support new leaders.
5 Strategies for Keeping Employees Happy
Recognition is crucial to ensure that your employees are happy and engaged with their work. In fact, according to an OfficeTeam survey, 66% of workers indicated that they’d leave their jobs if they didn’t feel appreciated. Here are 5 strategies for employee recognition.
Employee Retention: The True Cost of Losing Your Best Talent
How do you spot a great manager? It’s someone who fosters a culture of productivity and excellence. Someone who’s fun to work with, and connects with their teammates on a personal level. Someone who knows how to inspire and lead their team to success. In short, someone who makes people want to show up — and stay. Low turnover on your team may make you feel like a successful manager. After all, if you only lose a handful of people on your team each year, you must be doing something right. But what if that high employee retention rate is actually a negative—an indication that you’re failing to challenge employees and creating a culture of complacency? What if the few people you’re losing are actually your best and brightest? Employee turnover already costs US companies $160 billion a year. Replacing an employee can set your company back as much as 2x their annual salary. And with high performers delivering approximately 400% more in productivity than the average employee, losing even a few of your star workers can have an astronomical impact on your bottom line. Not only do high-performers cost more to replace, new research by SAP and Oxford Economics shows that less than half of them are satisfied with their jobs, and 1 in 5 say they're likely to leave in the next six months. Source: HBR It’s time to redefine successful employee engagement and retention. There are many questions to consider when it comes to employee retention, especially when using professional services to hire: are salaries direct costs for professional services firms? Do professional services have to provide proof of workers' compensation? Let’s examine the true cost of losing an employee, beyond the obvious hiring expenses, and uncover the real reasons high-performers and high potentials leave their jobs. Got $13 Billion? The Real Cost of Employee Turnover According to the US Labor Department, the number of Americans who quit their jobs is now the highest it’s been in nearly a decade: 3.1 million people voluntarily left their jobs in January 2017. That employee turnover is expensive. From advertising and recruiting to training and lost productivity, costs add up quickly for organizations that fail to actively invest in their workforce. Hiring costs: Between advertising open positions, screening applications, and interviewing candidates, the recruiting process alone represents a significant expense for companies. It costs $4,000 and takes 52 days on average for US businesses to fill an open position, to the tune of $13 billion a month. Onboarding costs: On average, businesses spend the equivalent of six to nine months of an employee’s salary to locate and train their replacement, not including valuable time spent by management and supervisors during on-the-job training. Lost productivity: These "soft costs" are trickier to quantify, but still have a significant impact on a business' bottom line. New hires simply aren't as productive as the person they’re replacing, and may take a year or two to get to that level. Not to mention potential errors made by new employees who are unfamiliar with your company's processes, tools, and policies. Poor engagement: When a teammate leaves, the rest of your employees are bound to wonder why, and may even consider leaving as well. This ripple effect can lead to a significant uptick in disengaged employees, which costs US companies up to $550 billion a year in lost productivity. To put these figures in more relatable terms: for a salaried worker earning $60,000 a year, your company will likely spend $45,000 to replace them. Warning Signs Someone is Ready to Quit Just as a poker player's “tell” hints at the content of their hand, a team member's behavior can tip you off that they're looking to leave. A new study by researchers at Utah, Florida, and Arizona State Universities defines a set of 13 “pre-quitting behaviors” that managers can use to identify those at risk for turnover—and possibly intervene in time to convince them to stay. These behavioral cues include: Decreased productivity A reticence to commit to long-term timelines Dampened enthusiasm for the organization’s mission Less willingness to act as a team player Stereotypical signs of an employee's impending departure, like wearing a suit to a casual office or a sudden rise in the number of doctor's appointments, did not show as strong a statistical correlation with employees who quit soon after. Researchers have also found that job hunting jumps by 6% around an employee’s work anniversary, increases 12% around birthdays, and spikes to 16% around non-work-related gatherings like school reunions, when people are more inclined to reevaluate the state of their life goals. With these figures, it’s tempting to accept employee turnover as a fact of life. But many of the reasons employees quit are surprisingly simple, even for high performers, and managers who fail to ask why their workers want to go may be needlessly losing people who are costly to replace. The New Employee Retention Model While competitive pay and benefits packages remain an important part of the equation, it’s no longer enough to retain your top talent. Recent years have brought about a significant shift in the employee/employer relationship dynamic: today’s young professionals expect to work for many companies over the course of their career, and require a sense of purpose and personal growth at each stage. This shift belies a need for a new employee retention model that begins with hiring, and extends to creating an enriching work environment. Effective employee retention strategies start with hiring the right person. One of the most common reasons people leave their jobs within the first 12 months is a poor fit, so don’t oversell the position to candidates. Be honest about what the job really entails and how success will be measured. Lori Goler, Global Head of People at Facebook, shares her favorite interview question with The Wall Street Journal: "'On your very best day at work when you go home and you think, I have the best job on the planet, what did you do that day?' I want to be sure that whatever job or role the person is coming into is something that has a lot of whatever that is in it. That is how you get someone to play to their strengths from the very beginning." Job fit isn’t the only thing to consider when hiring; culture fit is more important than ever. Millennials now represent over half of today’s workforce, and the who of their daily work matters to them just as much as the what. They want to work alongside people they like and enjoy collaborating with. And if they’re not finding that at your company, they’ll look for it somewhere else. So how do you create that culture of camaraderie? In an article published on LinkedIn Pulse, Josh Bersin, founder of Bersin by Deloitte, urges managers to apply Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs when cultivating a vibrant workplace culture that meets high-performing employees' expectations. Once people are “safe” (paid well) they want their work to be meaningful, apply to their personal skills and interests, to feel appreciated, and to work for a company they're proud of. Recognition and rewards remain an important and practical way to create a positive culture, so raises, promotions, and public recognition for your star employees are critical to keeping them engaged. As Jean Martin and Conrad Schmidt explain in an article for Harvard Business Review, “Even employees who haven’t been dubbed high potentials work harder in a place where good things happen to those who deserve them.” While public recognition remains a key element of a thriving company culture, high performers also require more frequent feedback and recognition from their own managers. 50% of high performing employees expect at least a monthly sit down with managers, but only 53% say they are getting the feedback they want from their superiors. Busy managers must make the time for frequent one-on-ones with their top team members, or risk them feeling that they're under-appreciated or stagnating in their careers. Another crucial aspect of a company culture that retains high performers is that of ongoing education—which is not only a benefit for your workers, but good for your organization. High-performers and high potentials represent future company leadership, and that process should start early in their careers. But it’s no longer enough to send people to conferences, workshops, or 3-day certification programs. Today’s top employees demand continuous learning opportunities, delivered through innovative platforms that fit their individual schedules. Ongoing education must be woven into the everyday priorities and schedules of your best performers. Even managers with limited funds for training can frame new projects and assignments as learning opportunities to keep high performers engaged. Implementing all of the above employee retention ideas doesn't guarantee that you'll retain your top talent, however. At the end of the day, people simply won’t stay with a company where they feel stuck. Even after controlling for factors like pay, job title, and industry, a study conducted by Glassdoor found that workers who stay longer in the same job without a title change are significantly more likely to move to another company for the next step in their careers. Keeping your best employees means giving them clear paths to advancement, and acknowledging them as future leaders early on. One large company profiled by Glassdoor solves this problem by giving high achievers access to exclusive online discussion boards, led by the CEO, that are centered around the company’s most pressing challenges. High achievers share their solutions and volunteer for new assignments, which not only ups transparency and involvement, but gives the executive team a direct line to the company’s rising stars. Solutions to Employee Turnover Companies are now experiencing a shift towards what Deloitte terms the “new organization,” characterized by highly empowered teams and workers. To retain top employees and stay competitive, companies must go beyond traditional engagement strategies like competitive pay and benefits packages. Smart managers will recognize the need to create an engaging workplace based on a strong learning culture, and define a new model of leadership and career development for their teams. As Josh Bersin writes, "High-performing companies serve their employees just as well as they serve their customers."
How to Create an Incredible Onboarding Experience For Your New Hires
So you’ve just hired a talented individual to join your team, and you want to make sure that her initial experience with the company is awesome. You hope she brags to all her friends and family about how amazing her new company is. But when was the last time you assessed — let alone improved — your onboarding? Consider this: your onboarding process is your new employee’s first impression of the inner workings of your organization. In other words, you need to make it count! To help you create an unforgettable onboarding experience for your new hires, we put together this helpful guide. It includes a lot of the best practices that we use to onboard new team members at my company, so I hope it can help you. While these processes work best in person, they are also great to implement while onboarding remote employees — get creative with Zoom and virtual team-building exercises, to ensure your remote hires get the best experience possible. Set expectations before they start working Your new hire’s first experience with your company actually comes before their first working day. You have a chance to wow them before they even step foot inside the building. Give them a breakdown of what they can expect when they arrive on their first day. Where can they park? What are some local lunch spot favorites around the office? What is their Day 1 agenda? What time should they arrive to work? These are all common questions that you should answer to help them alleviate some of that first day anxiety. Make a strong impression on day 1 It really helps your new hire feel comfortable when they sit down at their desk for the first time and they already have everything they need to get started. Here are some things you should have ready at your new hire’s desk when they arrive: Tools they need to perform their job — keyboard, wireless mouse, laptop stand, etc. An onboarding folder — this is a personalized A-Z style guide for working at your company. It should also include the roles and responsibilities of their position, as a reminder. A nice welcome package — company branded t-shirt, wristband, pen, hat, and any other company swag. An onboarding checklist — these are the top 10-15 things about your company that every person on your team needs to know. It should include things like the history of your company, profiles of the leadership team, your company’s mission and core values. Push their start date to a day when you have a team-wide meeting At my company, we have a team-wide meeting every Monday from noon to 1pm to go over important company updates and conduct our personal development training called the “Sensei Session”. We always start new employees on Mondays so we can give them a proper introduction during our all-hands meeting. We typically introduce new hires to the entire org and try some virtual icebreakers — we ask them to share their name, their role, where they're from, and one weird or interesting thing about them. We also add a little extra flare to our introductions. Our Director of Talent Acquisition plays the background music from the 1996 Chicago Bulls starting lineup intros and uses a bullhorn to introduce each new hire as if they’re about to run out on the court at the United Center. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw Give them time to meet with each department head During their first week on the job, it’s important that your new team member has a chance to learn the roles and responsibilities of each department. That way, they’ll get a much better understanding of the different moving parts inside your company. Schedule back-to-back 15-minute meetings with every department head so your new hire can learn who works in which department and what they do on a day-to-day basis. Organize a lunch with an executive during week 1 There have been more and more examples of companies achieving success with a flat organizational structure. A flat structure empowers individuals to become leaders and make decisions. In order to achieve this, employees need to have open and consistent lines of communication with the leadership team. One amazing way you can promote a flat structure at your company is by having the CEO or President take out your new hire for lunch. This will give them a chance to create rapport with someone on the executive team and show that each member of the team is valued. Give them a "Core Values" quiz at the end of week 1 If you put an emphasis on culture, everyone on the team should know your company’s core values inside and out. Write a core value quiz that your new hires must take and pass at the end of their first week. By the way, if you haven’t yet defined your core values, you absolutely must. Here’s a quick, 5-step guide to get you started. Create check-in points along the way There can be unforeseen challenges that arise when someone starts a new job. They might not get along with a coworker, or their direct manager may not giving them enough training. You can get ahead of these problems by holding check-in meetings. Your Hiring Manager or Head of HR should have a check-in meeting at the end of week 1, month 1, and month 3. The purpose of this meeting is to see how things are going, hear about challenges that they might not have discussed with their manager, and provide professional feedback so you can help them succeed. Author Bio: Sean Kelly is the CEO of SnackNation, a healthy snack delivery service for offices across America. Sean is also the Founder of AwesomeOffice.org, an association dedicated to helping companies maximize employee engagement, productivity and wellbeing.
