December 14, 2021
As January inches closer, talent leaders are holding their breath in anticipation of the possible flood of resignations to follow year-end bonuses. For organizations already feeling the effects of the Great Resignation, another spike can feel untenable.
The recent attention on the Great Resignation has shone a light on crucial (and long overdue) retention conversation. However, the attention has been lopsided, focusing only on one side of the retention conversation: #quitmyjob.
Far fewer conversations are focusing on where all those people are going next.
But if we reframe this event, as Josh Bersin recently did, as a Great Migration, it begs the question: Where are people going after they quit?
We know that people are leaving their jobs in search of something more fulfilling. A sense of belonging and being valued is now an expectation people are increasingly bringing to work; when it’s not met, they’re willing to walk.
People have higher expectations for what needs their work should fulfill; at the same time, their opportunities for employment are expanding. With 45% of people now working remotely, geography is less of a constraint than in the past. That greater sense of possibility is emboldening people to leave roles that aren’t meeting their needs, knowing they can now cast their job hunt more widely.
As Bersin puts it, people are going from “crumby jobs to better jobs” and “from companies that don’t seem to care to ones that really, really seem to care.”
Companies that are deeply investing in people are becoming talent magnets. These are firms where wellbeing is part of the cultural DNA, where employee experience is monitored and prioritized, and where leaders are supported to invest in team development and growth.
While many organizations purport to prioritize and invest in these areas, only 1 in 7 companies achieve these high standards for employee experience. Now, with massive talent fluctuations at play “irresistible organizations” are becoming the ideal destination for those feeling unfulfilled in their current workplaces.
It explains why so many companies are feeling the pains that come with high turnover - 6 out of every 7 companies still need to do more to meet their employees’ needs.
The pandemic simultaneously exacerbated two critical factors:
1. Prolonged isolation, leading to an increase in people’s desire for community at work
2. Remote work, allowing for flexibility in location
Yet, we shouldn’t view these trends as bound by the pandemic; the fallout is expected to be long-term. Those companies who see the Great Migration as temporary and therefore don’t act now, will continue to see retention and attraction rates fall.
It’s time to respond to employees’ needs and demands by investing in what they care about most: belonging in a community and contributing in meaningful and recognized ways.
Building a strong culture and employee experience will be your organization’s great retention and attraction strategy.
I believe these changes can’t just happen at the top of the house. Employees need to feel and see the change on a daily basis, in their day to day setting. This requires every leader and manager to invest in their teams’ experiences, wellbeing and growth. For some, this will come naturally, but for most, it will demand new ways of managing their people.
In those cases, managers will need guidance and tools to start listening and supporting their employees effectively. When managers are empowered and equipped, you’ll see leaders step up and truly own their team’s wellbeing. And this is the fastest path to creating and embedding the kind of culture that makes people want to stay or join your company.
As you get closer to that “irresistible organization” status, both retention and attraction rates will steadily climb.
Announcing Valence's upcoming research report with MIT.
Teams are the backbone of any modern organization. When they function optimally, they increase efficiency, innovation, and overall business performance. According to a study by Deloitte, teams that work well together can outperform individual contributors by over 50%
How was the first computer used? To Automate the typewriter. How was the first cell phone used - to augment the landline, making it mobile. But the true impact of technology comes when the potential of it allows creative leaders to re-invent old ways of doing things. Gen-AI will be capable of giving creative talent execs that power to re-invent leadership development and learning at work.
When a group of the world’s best talent & development leaders come together to share ideas, it’s not something you want to miss. This group of HR and talent leaders walked through some of their approaches to enabling teamwork, and the surprising impact that has had on employee growth and retention. Something most companies are striving for in turbulent markets.
Discover the thrilling answers to the questions we weren’t able to answer during our State of Teams Webinar with top talent & HR leaders. Covering manager burnout, recruiting, and different styles of coaching this Valence blog has all your answers.
Valence, the leading teamwork platform, today announced its $25 million Series A fundraise led by New York-based private equity and venture capital Insight Partners with additional investments from existing investors. This round of funding will be used to meet growing market demand and attract premier talent.
Teaser: Annual State of Teams Report
As January inches closer, talent leaders are holding their breath in anticipation of the possible flood of resignations to follow year-end bonuses. For organizations already feeling the effects of the Great Resignation, another spike can feel untenable.
One of the reason’s resolutions fail is they tend to be solo missions, and often ones that don’t affect or impact others. But when we set resolutions as teams, we all shoulder the weight of that commitment together.
As leaders scramble to retain top talent, many have found their typical levers - pay, perks and vacation - are ineffective. In some cases, these benefits are even making things worse. Top talent is now searching for meaningful interactions, not transactions.
Our brand is a reflection of who we are, so inevitably, as we evolve, so too does our brand.
Hybrid. Return to work. Flex. We’ve talked to many leaders about how their organizations are handling “what comes next” in the way their teams work. What strikes us is the variety of solutions on how to best support teams: some are sending people back into the office based on task, by day of the week, or others by manager discretion. This variety suggests two things: firstly, that there is no ‘right’ way to tackle hybrid; and secondly, that what is more important is finding what is ‘right’ for your organization.
Recruiting the right people for any business is hard - especially with the complexities of the last year at work. We’ve found that a pre-employment work experience - working alongside a potential hire on a challenging, time bound project - has changed how we gauge the right fit well before day 1.
Before teams can truly be psychologically safe in the workplace, there needs to be a change in thinking to how we support it. And we’ve found it’s in the adoption of a core set of values first, before anything else.
The way we work is changing more rapidly than ever before. The old wisdom about how to nurture successful teams no longer applies. Teams are coming together and disbanding faster than ever. This phenomenon requires new norms, resources, and ways of working.
Even the most motivated and driven among us have struggled with massive swings in our energy and morale. During this time of upheaval and crisis, how you help your team rediscover their motivation will be the top indicator for their long-term effectiveness, satisfaction and contributions.
This crisis and upheaval has demanded a lot of managers. But those hero managers who jumped in headfirst, kept their teams afloat, and made sure nothing was dropped, are now burning out. Turns out, even heroes need a break. Instead, conductor managers and their teams are thriving. Here’s how to make the change.
Professional instinct has conditioned us to avoid conflict with the age old saying “It’s bad for business.” Fast forward to today’s world of work and we’ll be the first to tell you that difference is what’s fueling outperforming teams. To lead your team in this direction, you’ll need to keep tension at the centre of your strategy.
We recently checked in with some of our senior clients and heard a variation of the phrase, “The crisis is over.” But after speaking with our users in middle management and on the frontlines of organizations, different experiences were left behind, far from it.
Remote work is hindering your ability to offer constructive feedback even though you’ve built social license to be candid with your team. Team outings and workplace comradery are no longer at play when it comes to effectively delivering critical comments. Alas, your feedback is being hidden behind screens with nowhere to go.
From retros to 1 on 1s, your ability to give feedback is what makes you a good leader. But simply giving constructive feedback often isn’t what’s going to help you effectively lead and improve team performance. If you think it’s about how often you coach, mentor, advise or opine, think again.
For the first time since Q1, many companies are ramping back up hiring. And while most have navigated the how to’s of interviewing and hiring remotely, a majority are struggling to effectively onboard those new hires.
Although swift and sudden, many teams have adjusted to working remotely. But as remote work drags on, team trust can easily fade if not purposefully maintained. Our research found 3 secret ingredients for what it takes to build high trust teams.
We looked at our Align tool reports since the pandemic started to understand how the employee experience has changed. Between April-June, we saw a dramatic spike in teams who said they struggled to be vulnerable in front of their colleagues.
Career development and mentorship opportunities have largely stalled. We asked young professionals about how they’re feeling and coping with the dearth of mentorship and development opportunities at what would typically be a high growth and learning stage of their careers.
Despite the early pandemic headlines of employees thrilled to work from home and prominent companies declaring it their new long-term normal, our Return to the Office survey told a different story - remote work isn’t the reset we all hoped for.
Since Covid hit, our clients are telling us that they’re seeing an influx in Pulse surveys asking how they’re doing. While executives and HR leaders may like the data, we hear from staff and our users that they don’t see benefits from more frequent surveys and they simply don’t want to answer them anymore.
Last week, Valence was invited to PwC’s Rise Up Summit, a global event that showcased innovative approaches to helping companies get through the pressures of the pandemic.
To the surprise of most, the first weeks of the pandemic saw a boost in productivity. But two months in, the road is getting bumpier and teams are reaching an inflection point.
Over the last few months, we have all experienced a dramatic shift in work in response to the COVID pandemic. Our new reality doesn’t respect the boundaries of work and life. Many of us are stuck at home, faced with isolation, distraction and uncertainty.
The future has rarely been more uncertain. How our lives - our family lives, our working lives, our social lives - will look one month, three months, or even a year is unpredictable.
Many of our clients are asking how we can support the swift and urgent shift to remote work. This blog post outlines our initial thoughts and how Valence's tools might help.
The sudden and rapid movement to remote working has been jarring and disruptive to many teams. At first, many of our clients talked wistfully about a couple of weeks at home and the chance to skip their commutes. But as the honeymoon period wore off, excitement dwindled and struggles to adjust and thrive in the new normal started to emerge.
In times of crisis, leaders are often faced with questions they don’t know how to answer. This problem is especially acute in the case of the covid-19 pandemic, a crisis that leaders couldn’t have anticipated, yet are now expected to have all the answers and chart a steady course.
In a bid to stem the spread of Covid-19, approximately 200 million people in China made the sudden switch to working from home by mid-January. Many companies cited rapid declines in productivity, while employees struggled with changing employer expectations and juggling work with homeschooling kids.