Margaret Goody, HR & Employee Relations Specialist of Akyra Strategy & Development, a solution provider at the marcus evans HR Summit 2016 discusses the strategies, employers can use to have an engaged workforce.

What do employers need to consider when implementing a recognition and reward strategy?

Employers must first answer, what do they want to achieve from recognition and reward strategy? In essence, employees want recognition and employers reward behaviours or performance.

What do employees want and appreciate as recognition? If the reward, the employer is offering does not recognise the employee’s individual contribution or what the employee actually values as a reward, then they might not see it as recognition.

So there is no point in giving recognition, such as movie tickets, to a workforce where a majority have indicated they have no interest in seeing movies. HR has a responsibility to identify the reward being offered, will fit what the workforce will value as a recognition.

HR can ascertain what employees would value most by a simple survey. There might be some personalisation needed. The majority of employees might want movie passes, but another whole quarter of them prefer vouchers for coffee or just want certificates to acknowledge they are doing a good job because it is something tangible they can show. Or might not want to be acknowledged publicly at all, but want to know they are appreciated.

So once HR has the survey results, they should consider offering offer a mix of what employees has chosen. This will demonstrate to the workforce that the management pays careful attention to their needs, for example if absolutely none of them wants movie tickets, then employers should absolutely not offer movie tickets.

How can Human Resources (HR) departments better retain staff?

HR in itself does not retain staff. HR can work with managers to find the most effective communication tools and provide the best opportunities to their team in a way that engages team members. This will make them feel valued and they can identify how their actions contribute to the growth of the business.

The goal of managers should not be to have a satisfied workforce, but to have a workforce that is engaged and who wants to be a part of the business growth. For instance, if the employee who is responsible for answering phone calls, understand that answering calls correctly and giving the right service or appropriate information might lead to a future sale or help retain a client, then this employee wants to be a part of growing the business. Since they can see how they contribute to it.

Why should performance and potential not always be linked?

Performance is how an individual does a job and potential is what they are capable of doing. Just because someone performs really well in a role does not necessarily mean they have got the potential to be a manager. This is where the conflict between performance and potential can arise because some employers might think if an employee performs well in their job, they can be a good manager.

Employers should not confuse being good at doing a job as having the potential to necessarily be a manager or lead a project. Instead they should identify what potential individual employees actually have.

Psychometric assessments can assist in identifying potential as can other aspects including the ability to move between tasks, progressive metrics and working memory capacity.

“Research has shown what employees value the most. In Australia, it is being able to respect their manager. Recently released research indicates the key reason people leave their job to go elsewhere is because they have lost respect for their manager or they do not believe they are getting any leadership or guidance from their manager,” informs Margaret Goody, HR & Employee Relations Specialist, Akyra Strategy & Development.

Akyra Strategy and Development, is a solution provider at the marcus evans HR Summit 2016, taking place in Gold Coast Australia, 21 – 23 March, 2016.

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