How will you retain talent post-pandemic?

As far as the eye can see the post-pandemic job market is showing a huge amount of mobility. I’m sure you’ve seen it too. People voting with their feet, a candidate’s market. Which means employers must focus on employee engagement.

In this, the first in a series of articles on Talent Retention Post Pandemic, I ask:

What do people want from their employers?

3 Top priorities for employees

My interviews last year with business leaders here in the UK and internationally clearly showed that people want these three things:

• Change
• Fairness
• Wellbeing

If you don’t take action on these, your talent will go elsewhere.

Change

First, people are looking for their organisations to learn from the changes we’ve lived through and be willing to make changes.

Fairness

Organisations that are “seen to be more fair” will attract and retain staff now and in future. People are frustrated – and have been for some time – by the unfairness they see, for instance in wages and discrimination.

All these are issues of fairness:

• diversity
• anti-discrimination policy
• more women in leadership
• maternity and parental leave
• climate change

Wellbeing

Yes wellbeing was already a focus for enlightened employers.

It’s now a more pronounced area for improvement – and potential discontent. Especially post pandemic, because many have suffered mentally and emotionally from the pandemic with its lockdowns and lack of live in-person interactions. Also from the forced estrangement from old, sick and grieving family members.

Online working and video meetings have meant more work and less possibility for between-meeting downtime. Meetings are scheduled one after the other. There’s no gap while you move to another venue. No travel at the start and end of the day, just movement to another room (if you have one) in your house. It has made for a very crammed, stressful working day with little exercise and variety – and more back trouble.

So, what changes will you make?

I am now working with organisations, helping their leaders manage these priorities.

Working with a structured programme, together we improve leadership approaches that make an impact on employee engagement and other post-pandemic change. It might be a 1:1 programme. Or a team approach. It might be a Leader As Coach programme for leaders at all levels. Or something else.

Never tried working with a qualified coach? Executive coaching with an experienced coach as your partner gives you clear benefits, such as these

• It makes space for deep reflection and therefore better decisions
• Its powerful processes drive the transformation you choose, depending on your ambitions and objectives regarding leadership or legacy
• Spin-off results are speedier decision-making, better quality conversations, more productive meetings, happier and more engaged teams.

If this is something you would like to explore, book a chat with me to discuss developing your top talent or elevating your own skills.