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Conference Speakers Share Best Practices
Conference Speaker, Dick Finnegan is the author of the top-selling SHRM-published book in history, The Power of Stay Interviews, and three other books. Mr. Finnegan presents on September 24th and shares with us this information about HR's greatest challenges.
What is HR's Greatest Challenge?
Hint: It's Connected to "HR, Go Fix It" by Richard P. Finnegan
There are two answers, actually: (A) Driving the c-suite to improve employee engagement and retention and (2) the title of my presentation at the PA SHRM Annual Conference…and also the title of my new book which SHRM distributed free to the top 30 global HR executives recently in Las Vegas.
Why, you ask, is driving the c-suite to improve engagement and retention your greatest challenge? What about getting payroll out on time? Or getting a bouncy castle in here for employee appreciation week?
Because your peers said it was. Imagine this clash of data. Bersin by Deloitte said earlier this year that engagement and retention are the fundamentals, that if HR can’t get them right, HR won’t get anything right. Then CEOs said in a global survey they stay awake at night worrying about talent. Then…get this…HR execs were asked first for their greatest 2015 challenges and then which one can’t they solve. The answer was employee engagement and retention.
So it’s easy to crown engagement and retention as the winner, the greatest challenge. More data spins the same tale. Voluntary turnover is rocketing up across the US, soon to surpass the all-time high. More importantly, though, Gallup tells us engagement has been stuck for the past 15 years and the best case is 69% of our employees are disengaged. “Sleepwalking” is the term Gallup used.
Not that we need to feel worse, but Bersin also says we are about to spend $1.53 billion each year to “fix” engagement. Billion with a B. Yet we’ve been stuck for 15 years. Where does this money go? Surveys. More surveys. Training. Consultants. Employee appreciation week.
Now the punchline: We waste that money because…drum roll…we’ve convinced ourselves we can solve engagement and retention by working around supervisors rather than through them. What’s easier, scheduling a town hall meeting or firing a supervisor who can’t build trust? You get the idea. The common answer to engagement and retention is “HR, go fix it”. You live with the idea.
Mr. Finnegan is the CEO of C-Suite Analytics and can be reached at DFinnegan@C-SuiteAnalytics.com