The lasting impact of the pandemic combined with inflation, economic uncertainty and a turbulent global political backdrop has created an unstable footing for businesses. Amid widespread skills and labour shortages, many are also experiencing challenges with attracting and retaining employees. With a reported 1.3 million job vacancies in the UK now, leaders must increase their focus on strategies for talent attraction, engagement and retention in order to survive and thrive this year.
Maintaining sustainable work life
As leaders, it is our responsibility to look after our employees and ensure healthy and sustainable working practices. We expect people to work hard in their roles, giving their professional best and maintaining productivity, creativity and contributing to overall business growth. That is not a sustainable goal if we allow them to repeatedly work longer hours and risk burnout. This leads to people taking increased sick leave, or worse, leaving. Both of these present businesses with additional financial burdens and employers are creating a massive problem for themselves down the line if they fail to recognise and respond to this potential crisis.
New remote and hybrid working models have increased the challenge for some businesses. Hybrid can deliver the flexibility employees want, allowing them to have more autonomy around when and where they work, and may also contribute to the harmonious work-life balance they seek. However, it can be more difficult for employers to help their people maintain healthy workplace boundaries when they are working from home. An ‘always-on’ culture exists in modern society, where phones and other devices provide people with notifications and messages around the clock. When employees are able to see and respond to emails at all times of the day and night, with a computer set-up that facilitates easy remote working, the temptation is to put in extra hours in their own time to get the job done.
As leaders we must promote a working culture that expects, even demands, that people switch-off after hours, to protect them as individuals, while protecting our businesses from the repercussions of burnout.
Measuring success and progress
During and since the pandemic, technology has enabled remote and hybrid working and helped transform the ways we all work. Our survey shows that technology is crucial in supporting profitability now, with 94% of business leaders highlighting it as important or very important. In the current economic climate we would expect companies to be doubling down on the key strategies to achieve growth and profit, using technology to support this.
A key metric for driving growth is the accurate measuring of individual, team and overall business performance. We were surprised to find that one in six UK business leaders say they do not measure performance or productivity of the workforce in any way. Without ongoing performance management, businesses cannot gain a healthy and accurate view of the engagement and productivity of their workforce – the vital requirements for organisational growth and success.
Continuous performance monitoring tools allow employers to measure productivity and other performance metrics, yet just one in five (20%) HR professionals in our survey say their employer uses these as part of their growth strategy. 64% of organisations are still using some form of annual appraisal – an outdated approach that fails to help build engagement or encourage two-way feedback because it happens too infrequently to have any real value. Effective performance management requires accurate and continuous data, not recollections around events that happened months ago, based on the opinion of one person – usually the manager. Using a performance management tool that collects information impartially means that all on-going conversations around actions and conduct with an individual are based on fact, and will therefore be more meaningful for managers and employees.
Technology is a vital tool that helps employers ensure that people are motivated, engaged, and focused, and can provide crucial insights into individuals who may be at risk from burnout. It can help identify those who are regularly working extra hours because they are unable to complete all of their tasks within the contracted time. It also supports improved health and wellbeing as being able to have regular two-way communications lets people know they have a voice, that they are heard and their employer is committed to meeting their individual needs. If they are experiencing areas of difficulty, those are picked up quickly and interventions such as training, mentoring or other forms of support are implemented swiftly.
Crucially, continuous performance management ensures that individual successes are being recognised and can be rewarded. Yet more than one in ten (13%) of our survey respondents say their business has no formal approach to performance management at all. With no effective and continuous mechanisms in place to achieve this, people can become demotivated and engagement suffers. Reward schemes and bonuses help to ensure employees feel appreciated and most of all, valued for what they do, but they can’t be fair or transparent without being founded upon accurate data.
Employee value proposition
Many organisations are now taking a good, hard look at their employee value proposition (EVP) as a key element in attracting, engaging with and retaining the staff they need for business growth. A business’ reputation and brand matter more now than ever. Implementing continuous performance management alongside effective learning and development opportunities and a clear path for career progression will help attract the best talent to fill vacant roles. It is also useful for employers seeking to create a sustainable talent pipeline, helping to identify the individuals who are ready for promotion, or to take on a more challenging project or client.
Technology is the enabler for other elements of EVP, helping organisations measure, analyse and illustrate their credentials and progress in relation to other areas that can help attract and retain talent. These include achievements in environmental, social and governance (ESG), and diversity and inclusion (D&I). Technology provides the tools for accurate carbon footprint calculations, or diversity pay gap assessment and analysis. We can’t improve what we don’t measure.
78% of UK business leaders are concerned that economic conditions will impact their organisation’s profitability over the next 12 months. Growth therefore has to remain a business priority in these uncertain times – otherwise people will lose their jobs and businesses fail. Leaders must ensure they are using real time, accurate and insightful data to inform all of their decisions. Being able to identify the employees who are making the greatest contribution to productivity, making sure no one is at risk of burnout, while also measuring and reporting on key ESG and D&I metrics, allows leaders to set realistic goals and know with certainty when they are reached. This is business-critical information, and is essential for driving further productivity and profitability to help businesses thrive in these challenging times.
