Traci Scherck: Welcome to elevated talent consulting my name is Tracy Sherck and we are chatting about planning for 2022.

Traci Scherck: And I love this time of the year, and I hope that you do as well because we’ve already done our reflections and if you have listened to the last two episodes of our podcast the first episode in December.

Traci Scherck: We chatted a little bit about how we reflect what are those key things that we need to do when we reflect.

Traci Scherck: And for us it’s looking back and it’s celebrating those wins those things that we did really well over the year.

Traci Scherck: Those things that we may be missed out and really understanding why, but the most important thing that we saw about reflecting.

Traci Scherck: is getting our team together and really understanding what worked and what didn’t work as a team to meet what our business results are.

Traci Scherck: And then, last week we chatted with damon Clark and damon is another certified predictive index consultant, just like myself.

Traci Scherck: We brought him into our team to lead a talent strategy session with our team to really understand what are those things that we can’t see ourselves and, yes, we do this work every single day, the thing is.

Traci Scherck: The cobblers children don’t have shoes right, sometimes we miss the things that are right in front of us for an expert at it so with That being said, we wanted to see.

Traci Scherck: What we could see from a neutral party coming up because we’re so close to it and there were so many amazing insights that came out of those conversations for our team one specifically being.

Traci Scherck: That we needed to really celebrate our wins so enough about us, but sometimes it’s just helpful to hear kind of what that works and looks like inside of.

Traci Scherck: Another organization so i’m curious, for your organization, what type of reflection, have you done looking over the last year, and what project plans do have looking into.

Traci Scherck: Because that’s where that key planning, where it comes in and it’s always starting with what is that business strategy.

Traci Scherck: And that business strategy specifically has in it.

Traci Scherck: The whether it is what you’re selling the number of programs the locations your and how you’re going to go about doing that, what is the people strategy that you need in order to reach those business outcomes.

Traci Scherck: And that people strategy, especially for our HR listeners, you know that are listening in today.

Traci Scherck: That people strategy is something you own, and it is a leadership strategy so it’s in collaboration and cooperation with your leadership team for what is it that they really need.

Traci Scherck: Who are those people, what does the job need, and then we bring the people at, and then we need to take care of the folks inside of our organization, what do they need.

Traci Scherck: In order to be successful and feel fulfilled in their work and meet those business outcomes, sometimes it is an alignment to the manager sometimes its alignment to the team sometimes it’s the specific culture so as you plan for.

Traci Scherck: there’s three key points that we’re going to look at today and the first is identify what the outcomes you’re looking to produce.

Traci Scherck: The second is to identify would have stopped you from creating it in 2021 and the third is to align the strategy with a team doing the work.

Traci Scherck: And we have some amazing clients that we work with on a daily basis and we have one specific client that has come to us and said.

Traci Scherck: You know, we are having a really hard time retaining current Staff right this isn’t a current problem right nobody’s experiencing this right now.

Traci Scherck: So you know, one of the things that we sat down and looked at it said well what are those things that that you’re specifically doing and what is the outcome that you want right.

Traci Scherck: And one of the things that they stated to us, as you know, we’ve got individuals coming to us that are amazing employees, saying that they’re going to jump to another organization across town for one or $2 an hour we don’t want to lose them.

Traci Scherck: So we end up doing that so it’s completely impacting our compensation structure and at the same time now we have some disparities happening between our staff So how do we incentivize our staff to stay.

Traci Scherck: Not just in the job, but actually stay their entire chef so if a line finishes it doesn’t mean the job’s done for the day, it means that there’s still other things that need to do that we need to do so, how do we incentivize that.

Traci Scherck: So this is one of those key things where we have a specific outcome, the specific outcome is that we retain staff at X percentage.

Traci Scherck: And that we have our staff X percentage of the time productive right so that might be that are stuck or 90% productive right.

Traci Scherck: or 80% productive, however, you want to name that don’t have it too high, otherwise your staff gets super super stressed out right think about what’s the training time that’s needed.

Traci Scherck: If you have meetings, those are unproductive time right actually little some of the most productive time but they’re not producing those results but it’s creating that cohesive in the team.

Traci Scherck: So with That being said, with this specific team, you know we started brainstorming and saying what are ways that we can increase the retention of the staff and increase the productivity.

Traci Scherck: To the percentages that this employer is looking for with a some buy in from the current Staff, so you know, asking staff, what is it that they specifically want you know they want their bellies fall that’s what.

Traci Scherck: And when we started listening in to this client she’s like hey look we bring on a second and we bring ice cream in and we bring food trucks and we do this one, so we.

Traci Scherck: As a way to keep our staff and get I said, those are great What are those things that you’re doing that is that for every one or is that an incentive for those that our meeting those key items she’s like nope it’s not tied to anything it’s.

Traci Scherck: it’s just a nice thing that we do I said that’s fantastic now how do we add on to that where we are also incentivizing getting us the numbers that we want.

Traci Scherck: and not every incentive is going to be a monetary incentive, it is super helpful and it is needed if your compensation structure is not in line yet, and you haven’t done a COMP study, it is a great great time to do a COMP study and really understand where your people had inside the organization.

Traci Scherck: So with That being said, we’ve got two goals right, we have a retention of staff bowl and we have this full of productivity of staff.

Traci Scherck: So the other things we started to look at to do that was what are our policies around us, so we created a culture that leaving early and coming in late as okay.

Traci Scherck: So how do we shift that culture that isn’t a slap on the hand but is rewarding we’re rewarding those things that we want to have happen versus penalizing what we’ve done.

Traci Scherck: In guess what these it takes an and both structure to do this it’s not always going to be one or the other, so it definitely isn’t an both.

Traci Scherck: But what we never want to do is create a policy for one or two people that impacts, the entire organization and has an unintended negative consequence.

Traci Scherck: So the first one identify the outcomes you’re looking for.

Traci Scherck: And so we’ve just done that, and we’ve talked about some possibilities for how we’re going to solve those specific outcomes so i’ll just tell you here’s the things that he came up with right.

Traci Scherck: So a couple things we came up with we did come up with monetary attendance bonuses, so the policies specifically stated, you know you will have.

Traci Scherck: An attendance infraction if you leave early or come in late so it’s on both sides of it, because the issue they were having was the leaving early.

Traci Scherck: So that was number one, and then we provided attendance incentives, so it was pizza pizza on Fridays right you, you had 100% attendance for the week got lunch on Fridays.

Traci Scherck: On top of what they were doing on Wednesdays, we also then added in some monetary incentive, so it was bonuses for attendance so when individuals would come and say hey I want this one or $2.

Traci Scherck: BONUS or i’m going to leave we essentially said hey instead of impacting the base rate for you.

Traci Scherck: We didn’t tell them that right, but instead of impacting the base rate what we did, is that hey look if you have.

Traci Scherck: Perfect attendance for a month we’re going to give you $1,000 perfect attendance for two months we’re going to give you another thousand dollars right.

Traci Scherck: So that that dollar amount they were looking for, we were able to essentially give them in the form of an attendance bonus at the end of the month, so it was one of those ways that we looked at that.

Traci Scherck: And then the third way that we specifically looked at, that is, we had.

Traci Scherck: drawings for specific prizes so whether it was a TV or it was a trip or it was whatever right so it’s asking employees, what is it that you want.

Traci Scherck: And then they would get so many names in the hat for things that they did right so perfect attendance picking up over time, some of those other things now one of the things I want to stress.

Traci Scherck: With bonuses and picking up overtime etc is bonuses will incentive individuals to be away from their family and there’s a really important balance here that we just need to keep in mind.

Traci Scherck: Okay, so let’s talk about what stopped us from achieving and creating those results in 2021 so just talked about potentially how we’re going to create those results would stop them from this, he didn’t have a formal a structure.

Traci Scherck: So if you don’t yet have a formalized structure inside your organization, we have our higher program starting.

Traci Scherck: In February at the launch of that will be in January, and that is really soup to nuts, how to set up your entire.

Traci Scherck: HR program from a hiring perspective and it’s over a six month period, so if you’re looking and saying hey, why did this happen, last year, it might be the the structures and the processes.

Traci Scherck: Some of those other things that may that you may have identified that you didn’t have are the tools, sometimes it is as simple as not having.

Traci Scherck: The right tools, whether that’s a payroll tool, whether that is a tool like predictive index where you can really see what does a job need and who is the person in a job and do those two things align.

Traci Scherck: Another thing is capacity are we asking her folks to do too much and, if so, how do we shift that and prioritize that so that they can focus and be super productive in the time that they’re there.

Traci Scherck: The third tip that we have for planning for 2022 is aligning the strategy with the team doing the work, so let me give you an example.

Traci Scherck: I am a maverick from a P, I speak right so maverick is somebody that is outside the box thinker, they are undaunted by failure, they are dynamic and what they do and that is what a maverick is right, what a maverick is not his attention to detail and ensuring so bullet points right.

Traci Scherck: and looking at things and saying all right, what needs to get done when and kind of pushing those things be some what is most important now.

Traci Scherck: I know for our team to be incredibly successful I must have someone who strengths my weaknesses that is incredibly detailed focus that hits every single deadline every single time.

Traci Scherck: And so what you need to look at in your team is what exact strategy is your team executing and you have the right players in that team to do it without someone burning all these calories.

Traci Scherck: And they’re not the calories you want to burn right Unfortunately, these are the burnout you know calories and not the you know the calories to fit into size for us okay.

Traci Scherck: So with That being said, you know we don’t want our folks burnt out right we’ve talked all your about the great resignation.

Traci Scherck: burnout leads to resignation, and that is not what we’re looking for so when we can specifically align our team to the to the business strategy we’re able to do that.

Traci Scherck: So we covered a ton today, so let me just do a recap identify what the outcomes are you’re looking for and looking to produce.

Traci Scherck: identify what is stopped dude from creating it in 2021 and then you want to align what the team is doing with the work to be done, one of the best ways to do that is using people that.

Traci Scherck: So if you want to take the predictive index I got the link in the show notes for you, if you need a structure to put this whole thing together, you have that for you too.

Traci Scherck: So with That being said, of course, we always end with.

Traci Scherck: What is a key takeaway for our CEO listeners, and that is to really communicate what are those business outcomes that you’re looking for.

Traci Scherck: What are those things most important to you in the C suite because that needs to be aligned throughout the entire organization and for your HR team guess what.

Traci Scherck: know what your seed suites looking for and be able to execute that people strategy that aligns with the business strategy and the business outcomes.

Traci Scherck: Because that is how you’re going to ensure that every individual is fulfilled in their work and the leadership team is creating the container for that to happen, while also hitting those business outcome goals.

Traci Scherck: So with That being said, thank you for joining us in not only this podcast but all the podcasts that we’ve done over the course of 2021.

Traci Scherck: and come back for 2022 we’re we’re going to dive deep into mentoring and with That being said, if you need some support with the strategy.

Traci Scherck: In your organization check out the link that we have in our show notes, where we talked about the higher program which will be launching in early 2021 Thank you so much, and have a fantastic rest of your day.