The LHH/DBM Talent Management Blog

No doubt, the global financial crisis brought many challenges with it; large financial institutions collapsed, banks were bailed out by government, stock markets experienced a downturn, and the housing bubble collapsed, producing a record number of evictions and foreclosures.

However, one outcome of the recession was good for organisational leadership development; a wave of seasoned executives and leaders postponed their retirement due to the collapse of the stock market.

Though organisations have been concerned about the impending talent crisis for years, the recession in late 2007 contributed to an increased focus on leadership development; specifically, as it relates to the next generation of leaders. Organisations realised that the majority of their senior leaders will resume retirement plans in next three to five years - will they be prepared to lead their organisations forward?

Planning for employee engagement is challenging, because it's hard to lock down an approach that will work for all employees, especially your key players. All too often, assumptions are made that can significantly hamper the success of your organisation.

In our opinion, what defines a key player are the three factors of engagement, aspiration and ability - these need to come together for an employee to be a high performing high potential member of your workforce.

In planning to engage with high potentials, there are three mistakes that are commonly made:

As we discussed in last week's blog, Why Employee Engagement Is Key For Your Top Performing Staff, research shows that many top performers choose to leave an organisation because of a lack of employee engagement. It's not hard to imagine that when there is no clear opportunity to grow in their careers, a company's best staff members can feel demotivated and disconnected, choosing to seek opportunities that do provide career development elsewhere.

The modern workforce is comprised of four very different generations. The Silent Generation (born 1925-1945) is about 95% retired already, while Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) are delaying their retirement plans. Generation X (born 1965-1977) is climbing the corporate ladder and Generation Y (born 1978-1989) is just entering the workforce. 

Because of the changes and challenges facing leaders today, few in HR would argue with the need for strong leaders and effective leadership succession planning. But when costs are under intense scrutiny then pressure to cancel leadership development programs mounts.

Is there a relationship between career development strategies and employee engagement?

That's what the joint research report between The Human Capital Institute (HCI) and Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) called Connecting the Dots: Comprehensive Career Development as a Catalyst for Employee Engagement set out to investigate.

What they found is that the expected drivers of employee engagement, namely superior compensation levels, better benefits and unique perks do NOT work as well as traditionally thought. Instead:

In a survey carried out by LHH/DBM and the Human Capital Institute (HCI) across 1200 businesses from 45 countries, we asked respondents what factors were gaining significant or major consideration when determining their separation policy.

Overwhelmingly, Budget and return on investment (ROI) came a distant 7th and 8th respectively, in terms of importance with only 40% of respondents citing this as a significant or major factor.

So if its not about the money, what is it about?

Are your employees truly engaged in their work and with the organisation?

In today’s tough economic climate companies need a strategic talent management approach that includes a focus on employee engagement. Many companies fail to ensure employees are satisfied in their roles and are committed to achieving key strategic goals so they risk turnover of their high performers and a lack of engagement along with loss of talent that could seriously impact an organisation’s ability to meet strategic objectives.

Organisations cannot afford to neglect employee engagement. The costs to the organisation may be significant.