Traci Scherck: Do you really understand what your employees need it’s a key question that comes up over and over and over again.

Traci Scherck: Welcome to the talent optimization podcast my name is Tracy Scherck and we are in podcast number 79 and today we are chatting about how do we diagnose what’s really happening inside of our organizations and what our staff need.

Traci Scherck: And one of the keys that I love about diagnose is when we understand what our folks need inside or of our organization, we can up level, and we can celebrate those successes.

Traci Scherck: So how do you know something’s working or not it’s simple ask the questions right now how we asked questions has a very, very important impact on the results that we get, because how we asked questions.

Traci Scherck: is going to tell the employee or customer right there’s lots of different ways to diagnose things whether it’s in communities, whether it’s your customers, whether it’s your employees.

Traci Scherck: But the questions we ask give a sense to our employees what it is that is important to us right so.

Traci Scherck: What we asked and how we asked the question will drive some of those changes so, for example, there was a study done on specifically health right.

Traci Scherck: And the organization ask very specific questions questions on you know mental health and physical health well what happened is they then went and watch.

Traci Scherck: The number of individuals that joined their VIP program or took part in their.

Traci Scherck: In their health tracking and it actually increased after the questions were asked, so the data shows that the questions we asked will impact individuals behaviors so as we start to talk about diagnose.

Traci Scherck: This month on the podcast I really want you to think about what questions you ask and how that impacts.

Traci Scherck: How that impacts, the results that individuals and the actions that individuals are taking.

Traci Scherck: So here’s something that came out of the workforce Institute, which is through UKG, and so what the what.

Traci Scherck: The workforce institute asked is they were really looking at why individuals were leaving organizations.

Traci Scherck: And what were the reasons, so they asked to different groups of people right, so they asked them they asked individuals left organizations, why are you leaving and then they went, and they asked managers, why are you leaving.

Traci Scherck: And what we know is we are, I believe it’s 33%.

Traci Scherck: up over last year of individuals that are leaving the organization so number of quits right that’s a significant number so we’re still in the middle of this rate resignation or Great swap or whatever you want to call it.

Traci Scherck: But we’re also seeing individuals boomeranging we’re seeing individuals coming back to organizations saying I should have never left you know the grass was greener, on the other side, I should have stayed there right.

Traci Scherck:  but what we find really, really interesting from the study and what I want to focus on here.

Traci Scherck: is why individual stated they left and why managers state they left right so reason number one for both managers and employees was they left because of more money.

Traci Scherck: Better compensation benefits add another organization and we’ve definitely seen this over the last two years, and you know as a side note here.

Traci Scherck: If you are paying more for individuals coming into your organization, please take a really close look at the folks that have stuck it out and have been loyal to you.

Traci Scherck: Ensure that you’re increasing them to at least that level, even if it’s with bonuses, or something else because.

Traci Scherck: that’s something that’s incredibly important so number one reason, people are leaving money right but number two and three are really interesting so managers thought that people were leaving.

Traci Scherck: Number two was for personal, family reasons childcare and number three for managers was too many covered professions so that’s what the managers thought in the survey.

Traci Scherck: Yet when they when we asked, or when they when ukg in the workforce institute asked employees.

Traci Scherck: Why they left the number two reason is that they did not feel valued or feel that they belonged in the workplace.

Traci Scherck: And then number three reason was employees felt that they had poor work life balance and had a tremendous amount of burnout.

Traci Scherck: When we think about the distinction here so managers think that they’re leaving because of personal, family reasons.

Traci Scherck: or because of too many covert precautions yet employees are stating that they’re leaving because they don’t feel valued.

Traci Scherck: And they don’t feel like they belong at the organization and they’re burnt out right Those are two distinctly different items.

Traci Scherck: If we don’t ask the question to our staff what’s going well what’s not going well we’re going to solve for things that are not important.

Traci Scherck: And that’s why diagnose and doing surveys with our staff is so incredibly important when we understand why people are leaving.

Traci Scherck: Or why they’re staying we can address those things and we can talk about them and be transparent with them, and that is what we’re going to talk about today.

Traci Scherck: So um you know, we want to look at the employee lifecycle and say were some key areas that we can focus on, you know, asking some questions so a couple things that we can do one we love to ask folks when they come into the organization.

Traci Scherck: What is it that you’re looking forward to what are your goals for the first 30 60 90 days, the first year in five years, we want to really understand what is important to that employee.

Traci Scherck: Why do they feel like they are the perfect person for this job here’s the thing.

Traci Scherck: We love to get the stuff in writing, not as a gotcha but so that we can share this with our managers and leaders, because then they can use that so that they know how to lead individuals in a way that’s meaningful to them.

Traci Scherck: If you have not yet listen to podcast number 74 where we talked about how do we design our teams.

Traci Scherck: We talk a lot within that podcast about ensuring things are important and meaningful to the individual and that they’re aligned to what the job needs and the organization needs.

Traci Scherck: So when we asked questions up front before they even come into the organization, we can then track that back after they’ve been with the Organization for 30 60 90 days.

Traci Scherck: And, and that gives us our next area to diagnose right so when an individual comes into the organization within the first 30 60 90 days.

Traci Scherck: doing some surveys there to say hey how did orientation go did orientation prepare you to learn how did your onboarding go did your onboarding prepare you to make an impact in the organization is this what you thought it was If not, why not.

Traci Scherck: and ensuring that you can get that data have the clear and transparent conversations on it.

Traci Scherck: That is going to allow you to move the needle forward on ensuring individuals are engaged and why is engagement so important.

Traci Scherck: Because that engagement has individuals at the want to curve, they want to work they’re not just there for a paycheck they’re there, because they want to be.

Traci Scherck: We, the more folks we can get to that want to curve in the organization, the more likely they are to feel that they belong.

Traci Scherck: to feel that they’re doing meaningful work and if we’ve designed the organizations right they’re focused and they can see exactly what they need to do, which means.

Traci Scherck: they’re not necessarily overwhelmed because they can celebrate with those key successes are so, but when we understand hey I don’t I feel like there’s too much, I feel overwhelmed we can address those things right.

Traci Scherck: So when we’re diagnosing items in the organization there’s like I said there’s a couple key areas that we’re going to follow, based on the employee lifecycle one is at the very beginning, before they come in.

Traci Scherck: During their orientation and onboarding period and then we’re going to specifically look at that typically on an annual basis, so we can call them some organizations call them climate survey is you want to see what the climate looks like.

Traci Scherck: Now the tool that we use for climate surveys on this actually has heat maps on it, so we can see who in the organization.

Traci Scherck: is doing, really, really well in this area and who’s not the goal here is to be transparent, because we can all grow right.

Traci Scherck: And when we understand how we can grow, we can also as leaders.

Traci Scherck: grow within that but we’re listening to what folks are saying so we’re going to go back and we’re going to make some small tweaks one thing at a time remember.

Traci Scherck: We want to make a 1% change which is going to be significant over time.

Traci Scherck: When we make those 1% changes we’re going to do some pulse surveys one or two questions it’s not going to be the same in every department of the organization it’s going to be specifically laser focused.

Traci Scherck: Based on what the team side in that specific area reporting to that specific manager because we’re going to focus on one thing at a time for each team right.

Traci Scherck: And that’s going to tell us is what we’re doing moving the Needle, or do we need to try a different level, but we don’t want to move too fast.

Traci Scherck: Otherwise we don’t get to see the impact of the changes that we’re making so The next area so we’re going to do.

Traci Scherck: Surveys before individuals come in during orientation onboarding on an annual basis, which is our climate survey.

Traci Scherck: Or you know our culture survey essentially and then we’re going to do pulse surveys in between those to see hey here’s what we’re going to focus on how Are we moving the Needle, on it.

Traci Scherck: The next one that I love to do is something called stay interviews in these are hyper focused on our top performers and these are asking them why they stay.

Traci Scherck: You know why are you a top performer, why do you stay what is, what is your manager do that’s amazing how you know, are you a great fit for this job, where do you want to go in the future.

Traci Scherck: how’s the organization doing to really serve you when we can understand those things we can start applying it across.

Traci Scherck: The rest of the organization, but if we don’t understand what the right things are we have a tendency to focus on the wrong things which.

Traci Scherck: leads us to move in the wrong direction, and then the last one is the exit interview now exit interviews can be incredibly powerful.

Traci Scherck: Yet the thing we want to look at with exit interviews is two key items, these are individuals that are leaving right so which that means is.

Traci Scherck: Typically, they have something negative to say right, so we want to take that into context.

Traci Scherck: they’ve also made the decision to leave, which means we don’t have the ability to change their mind, however, we have the ability to keep the door open if they want to boomerang back to us right and back in episode 74 we talked about.

Traci Scherck: The the survey done through workforce Institute of UK G, which talked about boomerang employees and it talked about why people are leaving right.

Traci Scherck: And if we can keep that door open for folks about why they left in the fact that we want them back, and what that means for them to come back.

Traci Scherck: You know they’re more likely to come back of that something that you’re looking at right now.

Traci Scherck: So when we’re diagnosing what’s going well and what’s not going well inside of our organization, we want to make sure, one that we’re asking the questions that really matter.

Traci Scherck: To that we’re creating an environment of trust, because if our employees don’t trust that we’re going to do the right thing with the data.

Traci Scherck: they’re not going to give us honest information and we we typically want a 65% response rate, because that shows the validity of the study is that we’re doing.

Traci Scherck: And then third is, we have to follow through on what we do on on what the feedback is in that study and share that study.

Traci Scherck: or those surveys transparently, if we don’t share it what happens is we lose trust with the individuals that have taken it and spent the time on it.

Traci Scherck: So with That being said, we have quickly covered what diagnose is and how you can diagnose different stages in your organization, we have something super exciting for you.

Traci Scherck: We have a program it is it’s four weeks there’s different lessons where we actually go through each of these diagnose areas, how to ask questions they’re sample survey tools in there.

Traci Scherck: And some of the tools that we use that has some amazing benchmarks in it as well, so if that’s something that you’re interested in, you know, like I said, we have.

Traci Scherck: A course on how to do this inside your organization that is available, and you can see a link below, and we also have a tool we use called predictive index.

Traci Scherck: That has some amazing tools in it specifically related to annual climate surveys so with That being said, you know, a key takeaway for executives listening in today is make sure you ask the questions right.

Traci Scherck: And the key takeaway for HR listening in is ensure that you have a way to analyze that data and follow through on it.

Traci Scherck: Because that follow through is going to build trust in the organization so with that, I wish you an amazing week and I can’t wait to have you listening next week.

Traci Scherck: As we continue to talk about how we diagnose items inside of our organization and we have Andrew Bartlow with us next week so thanks so much for being with us, and we hope you have a great week.