This article by Jon Sweigart was originally published In The ESOP Report, February 2015, The ESOP Association.
I attended a wedding reception at a country club several years ago. After humorous toasts from the young couple’s wedding party, the bride’s father slowly rose from his chair with a frown and cleared his throat.The laughter stopped.
“Over the past couple months, all the talk has been about this wedding,” the bride’s father began.“But I haven’t heard anyone say much about the marriage.”
He then lectured the couple (well, mostly his new son-in-law) about what it takes to maintain a marriage long after the wedding is over.
Organizations who want to develop an ownership culture can fall into the same “event as relationship” trap the bride’s father warned against. Initial ESOP roll-outs, yearly evaluations, and “ownership week” celebrations stand in for the harder work of developing ownership behaviors as part of a sustained, integrated strategy.
Talent management offers a useful strategic framework for organizations serious about developing ownership behaviors across the employee lifecycle. No standard definition of talent management exists, so consider this working definition: a sustained, integrated strategy to attract, engage, develop, and retain talented employees who make significant contributions to business results.
Many elements of talent management – recruitment, on-boarding, and performance management – are not new. What is new is the realization that developing and retaining talented employees – across their lifecycles and throughout the organization -- creates a competitive advantage. It requires leadership, strategy, integration, and persistence. Talent management is too important to relegate to an HR silo, deliver as disconnected events, and offer to executives only.
Talent management activities and the employees they target vary among organizations. An integrated strategy is more important than the exact mix of activities. A 2009 article, “The New Face of Talent Management,” by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), identified what organizations with successful talent management strategies consistently do:
In employee-owned companies, talent management presents an opportunity to reiterate ownership values, build ownership behaviors, and retain talented employees who contribute to an ownership culture.
Common talent management elements include:
This article explores some of these elements – recruitment, on-boarding, learning and development, and retirement/separation – with emphasis on their connection to ownership culture. Each brief description includes “one bright idea” to stimulate thinking about practical applications.
Retention begins with recruitment. That’s why an integrated talent management strategy includes a recruitment plan that goes well beyond a job posting to include things like networking, branding, and treating candidates as customers. Reaching the “right people” with a message that attracts interest and communicates what is unique about your organization begins with the very first contact.
Talented people have choices about where they can work. Beyond a competitive salary and benefits, what can they expect from your organization that is unique? To answer this question, first determine what kind of ownership culture you want to develop and maintain. Is the ESOP just a retirement benefit, an opportunity to motivate performance, or something in between? Answers to this fundamental question define the behaviors and values that integrate talent management from recruitment through retirement.
One bright idea: Develop an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that describes what your organization promises to provide employees that is unique. Include only those things that you can consistently deliver right now. Those unique offerings might be tangible (e.g.,ESOP retirement benefits) or intangible (e.g., opportunity to be treated “like an owner,” with an emphasis on transparent communication and professional development).
First impressions last and change slowly, if at all. The fact is that talented people have options. Just because they took a job does not mean they have stopped looking. It’s in the first few months that they decide if they are going to stay and for how long. They have one foot in the door, but they’re not home yet.
Fortunately, most new employees arrive eager to belong and learn. That makes on-boarding an opportune time to introduce and shape behaviors and attitudes that contribute to an ownership culture.
Employers sometimes mistakenly make on-boarding mostly about information and administrative procedures instead of connecting new employees to people. People come for jobs, but stay (or leave) for the people. Focus on connecting new employees to experiences,people, and the community. Provide information over time when it’s most relevant. That means delaying a comprehensive orientation to ESOP particulars until an employee nears eligibility. Instead focus more on relationships and culture.
In fact, the process of on-boarding typically takes about a year. During that time new employees need to learn what is “special” about working in your company (this is how you deliver on EVP promises and build trust). How is your culture, as one that is built on employee ownership, better than cultures of more typical companies? What people and stories demonstrate decision-making or actions taken that deeply reflect core company values?
The supervisor relationship has by far the most influence on a new employee’s sense of belonging and experience of ownership culture. In fact, you could say the supervisor is the culture for new employees. That’s why it’s important for supervisors to be readily available to new employees and connect them early to strong role models and opportunities to contribute. Of course, this requires that supervisors themselves understand and demonstrate the behaviors that contribute to an ownership culture.
One bright idea: Don’t leave a new employee’s early experience to chance. With input from supervisors and more recently-hired employees, script an employee’s first 90 days to maximize opportunities to connect to people – multiple managers, peers, and affinity groups – and meaningful work where new employees can experience “early wins.”
As part of an integrated talent management strategy, learning and development opportunities are perhaps the most concrete demonstration of an organization’s investment in supporting employees to grow professionally and perform at the highest level. For employee-owned companies,learning and development that strengthen job skills, business literacy, goal-setting, and problem-solving may be especially important.
Leadership development – both for executive leaders and middle management – can also have a significant return on investment for employee-owned organizations. Top leaders have a strong influence on developing an ownership culture; supervisors have the most influence on how employees immediately experience that culture on a daily basis.
Forward-looking organizations do not limit learning and development to formal training, but also include assessment, coaching,mentoring, and on-the-job stretch assignments. In employee-owned companies, opportunities to participate on committees or problem-solving task forces can also engage employees to learn and develop.
One bright idea: Build coaching skills for leaders, managers, and supervisors to boost learning transfer. Formal learning suffers from a steep “forgetting curve” unless participants have opportunities to practice and get feedback in the workflow.Coaching aligned with formal training goals boosts return on investment exponentially.
It may seem odd to include retirement and other separations as part of talent management. But it seems especially important in employee-owned companies to highlight this part of the employee lifecycle for at least two reasons.
In the case of voluntary retirements, it’s a time to celebrate the best results of talent management and ownership culture. The ESOP is not a get-rich-quick scheme that rewards job-hoppers. Instead, those employees who come, stay, and contribute over a long lifecycle have the potential to reap generous retirement rewards. They can serve as role models of the individual and organizational rewards of attracting, retaining and developing talented people in an employee-owned company.
For those who leave for other reasons, the separation may provide valuable insights for improving talent management. The reasons people leave – whether voluntary or involuntary -- may suggest patterns that can pinpoint weak areas of talent management and suggest improvements.
One bright idea: Don’t wait for exit interviews to discover why talented employees leave. Take a proactive approach and coach supervisors to conduct regular “stay interviews,”especially with high-performers. Begin the conversation something like this:“We have been pleased with your work and, as long as it continues, we want you to stay. In fact, I want to learn about what’s most important to your decision to continue with us and what role I can play.”
So here’s a parting toast to integrated talent management that functions more like a marriage than a wedding. For employee-owned companies, that means aligning the ownership culture they want and the behaviors that express it with a long-term strategy of engagement and development of talented employees from recruitment to retirement. Cheers!
Bret Keisling interviewed Jon Sweigart for the ESOP Podcast about Continuous Improvement and employee ownership and engagement.
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