Onboarding new employees is a prime concern for every company, but the focus also needs to shift on employee retention. Did you know that employee retention is expected to increase by 10% by 2020 due to organisations giving their employees the option to choose their own work style.
Hiring a new employee is easy, but making them stay and work happily in your company is a different ball game altogether.
Some companies go all out if they wish to enhance employee engagement, whereas other companies still don’t see the value in such ordeals. Especially during workforce transformation – they would instead look for new employees than training the existing employees.
What do I mean by “workforce transformation”?
Workforce transformation is:
“The act of training your employees to change the makeup or capability of your organisation’s workforce.”
But why does workforce transformation happen?
Workplace transformation and the changing nature of work generally occurs in one of the following scenarios:
- Changes for Development: An improvement on the current systems, and policies for increased performance.
- Transitions: Changes in business procedures and technologies to adapt to upgrades and advancements.
- Transformational Change: Fundamental change in corporate culture.
A change of any scale needs to be adequately managed to ensure the journey is smooth.
So, how can one ensure a comprehensive workforce transformation alongside keeping a check on employee retention? Read on to know about sure shot ways for easy employee engagement and transformation.
5 Tips for Smooth Workforce Transformation
Be Liberal & Open to Change
The enterprise is not a living being all by itself. It is the employees who make or break the entire organisation. While bringing about a change, it is best to seek the feedback of the employees who are directly affected by the decision. This will not only make sure that your employees accept the change, but also ensure the change helps your employees to become better.
Instead of going, “Hey! You were supposed to deliver this yesterday, isn’t it? Why is it still pending?”
Take a deep breath, control your temper, and word your thoughts politely.
You can phrase the above reaction differently, such as: “Hey! I see this task is still to be delivered. Are you having any difficulty that I can help you with? I would love to deliver this ASAP, and perhaps we as a team can do this? What do you think?”
This makes your employees feel that even if they make a mistake, you have their back. You, as a manager, are understanding and kind. These are a few qualities of a good project manager.
So, rather than choosing an authoritarian/imperial attitude, the management needs to be liberal and address all the issues raised by their employees with an open mind. This way, no one would feel any sense of imposition and would be open to taking up ownership and responsibility for the project.
Pro Tip: Don’t micromanage your employees and always give them a fair chance to participate in discussions. This is also a great way to fight out the initial aversion towards the fresh change slowly.
Know How to Manage Change Efficiently
Change management involves several procedures that must be followed according to the framework within the organisation. It is also important to identify and measure the resources available to the organisation at every stage and allocate the same to various teams and departments as required.
While planning human resource allocation, it is essential to find the most proactive employees of your company. The best employees who contribute their hard work and passion towards the company’s objectives fulfillment need to be identified. This is basically what the organisation is trying to retain during the change.
Once all this is streamlined, it is crucial to keep managing everything efficiently.
Pro Tip: Don’t treat other employees differently. Know who perform well and make sure you retain those employees, but train the others as well. Losing a resource who works passionately leads to a more significant loss than losing one who works to complete the goals.
Be Direct in Implementing the Change
It is crucial to implement changes in a simple and hassle-free manner.
Imagine you have been working in a company and suddenly they tell you to undergo training on “proactive management skills”. Or they simply change the process you follow when implementing your projects.
How would you feel?
You, as an employee, will feel good and encouraged if your manager comes up to you and explains why this is needed.
The more simple it looks, the easier it is to implement. A lot of the attitude of an employee in your organisation can be traced back directly to his supervisor/manager. It is right to say that “People don’t leave organisations, they leave managers.”
A bad manager can induce counter productivity in an excellent workforce, and a good manager can lead a weak workforce to create a strong enterprise by enhancing their productivity.
Pro Tip: The manager should apply his tacts, skills, and experience to ensure smooth implementation of the change and evaluate the reciprocation from his team.
Image: Unsplash
Ask Your Employees For Feedback
The only thing in this world that’s permanent is change.
Therefore, it is necessary that, right from the initial planning and layout, the transformational strategy is aligned with the internal and external environment of the organisation. This is the primary test that must be carried out before drafting the detailed plan.
When implementing change in your company, it is also important to know whether the change has a positive impact on your employees and their productivity.
But how can you achieve this?
Along with deploying an HR project management tool like ProProfs Project that monitors employees’ performance, it is crucial to ask your employees how the change “changed” them.
Did they learn something new?
Did they understand why the change was needed?
Did they agree that the change was needed?
Pro Tip: Asking your employees for their feedback and talking it out to them are two different things. So, if you get feedback, make sure you listen to them and talk to them about what they feel. Build a connection. This will make your employees feel valued and encouraged to work better.
Ask For Client/Customer Feedback
The need for workforce transformation can also arise with a client or customer feedback.
Before they complain, you must become proactive and ask them about their experience. Right from when they come to you till you deliver, you need to ask them if they feel that you, as a company, can perform better.
With their inputs, you can get an insight into what processes need to be improved and bring about the needed changes easily.
Pro Tip: Deploy a survey maker that’ll streamline the entire process. It comes with multiple templates that make it easy for you to ask relevant and insightful questions to your customers and clients. These tools also come with a reporting tool, to make you understand what needs to change.
In Summary
Workforce transformation is a complicated process to implement, but with complete transparency and a flow plan, you can achieve this easily.
One solution which always works for all the companies, even startups, is adopting an HR project management software.
The right HR project management software not only helps in performing day-to-day HR activities but also helps in ensuring a smooth workforce transformation.
Follow the tips mentioned in this blog and enhance employee engagement and retention effortlessly!
About the Author
David is a technical writer, his works are regularly published in various papers and top-notch portals. His rich experience in project management software helps him offer a latest and fresh perspective on improved efficiency in workflows across organisations. His informative works on similar lines can be viewed on ProProfs Project. Follow David on Twitter @davidmiller4312 or connect on LinkedIn.
