Plug the skills gap and improve employee retention with unexpected moments of recognition

With shifting demographics and the skills gap challenge ever rising across many organisations and sectors, ensuring you are optimising the skill set and retaining the talent within your organisation is only going to become increasingly important.  

The good news!

Promising talent can be found inside your organisation if you have the right data and a targeted approach to help employees see a positive future for themselves and the organisation. Check out three ways to create a memorable recognition moment.

With an increasingly competitive and demanding talent market, employers are being challenged to look at the needs of existing employees more than ever before. Employee recognition aligned with values and behaviours as well as service milestones are now considered a given. Employers who want to retain talented employees need to identify other unique moments in the employee experience and create a memorable recognition moment around them.

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Based on our annual New Rules of Engagement^® research, one of the top predictors of both commitment and performance is employees being able to see a future for themselves and the organisation. Here are a few ways to encourage your employees to envision their future with your company.

Early career engagement

Early career focus in the past has been on employee onboarding but now career pathing is getting its time in the limelight. Employers can start by looking at current interns, part-time and entry-level populations as targets for early goal setting. Once goals and a path are established, create a rewards and recognition structure around activities to keep them focused and motivated. It may take a year or more for an intern to become full-time so making sure they receive adequate coaching, recognition and rewards along the way will increase the likelihood they’ll stick around to see the finish line.

One retail organisation had created a very specific plan for employees to move up in their career but saw few people engaging with it. They created visual dashboards that showed the employee how close they were to the next career path level and included links to learning and information that would help guide them on their journey. After sharing the visual dashboards through targeted email campaigns, they saw a significant increase in employees moving up to the next level.

Leadership development

That same review, upskilling and career pathing can happen with more tenured employees as well. By leveraging engagement and performance data, an organisation can identify those employees who are high potential and begin defining a path to leadership.

One global company had key metrics they used to determine who was high potential at the organisation. When linked with employee recognition data, the company discovered that those employees who received a HIPO (high potential) rating one year and received low recognition (0-5 in a year) that same year were more likely not to receive the HIPO rating the following year. This allowed for a targeted employee recognition strategy for the identified HIPO groups to ensure consistency in performance.

Combatting burnout

Long service employees in general deserve some extra recognition and attention. They’ve suffered alongside talent management with the Great Resignation, watching colleagues go and often having to take over their work and train replacements. The added stress of constant change can have a significant impact on their work and health and contribute to feeling burned out, even if they are still highly engaged in their work.

A large global healthcare organisation realised burnout was a very real thing in their organisation and took steps to acknowledge it and offer support. Their messaging strategy was around reminding their employees to take time away from work and was reinforced with a tangible reward of a fitness watch. It also encouraged them to take time to thank those who support them by providing a separate kit with everything they’d need for a cosy night in with loved ones.

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Promising talent can be found inside the organisation if companies have the right data and a targeted approach to ensuring employees see a positive future for themselves and the organisation as a whole. Part of your employee retention strategy should include a clear visual path for upward mobility alongside rewards and recognition to promote engagement along the way.