3 Tips to Keep Your Best Talent

Organizational identity can be best described as how the employee feels about their relationship with their company.?It is built upon the bond an employee has when they are proud of their job and their company.?The stronger the bond, the more likely the employee is to stay, to champion change within the organization, to innovate and to be personally fulfilled with their work.?It would be amazing if every employee had strong organizational identity because fulfilled employees leads to skyrocketing, unleashed productivity and innovation.

On this Employee Appreciation Day, let’s take a look at Marea’s Three Tips for keeping your best talent by creating strong organization identity.

• Accountability ~ Setting clear expectations may seem like a no-brainer.?Many organizations have job descriptions that were written and only developed once when the role was new.?As employees thrive within their role, they bring the work to a higher level of output and innovation.?Revisit job descriptions to accurately reflect the work that is needed to meet organizational goals.

Pro Tip: Revisit the job description annually with the employee to renew the work they are doing. Some of it may have been achieved and is no longer needed or you may need to add new work to align with new company strategies.

"Humans are wired to be 'of purpose", to create and produce something that comes from within."

~Carrie Geyer

• Authority ~ Employees bring their talents, gifts and passions to their work.?Humans are wired to be of purpose, to create and produce something that comes from within.?Share clear boundaries for them to work within their lane.?Allow them to understand the goal and then to figure out the ‘how’.?Knowing when their work bumps up against a colleagues’ role or their manager's work or their direct reports, gives them a path to get their job done and allows them the clear authority to do so.?For example, give them their explicit accountabilities and goals, and then get out of the way.?Create the space for them to bring the talent you hired them for right to the table and allow them to act with fortitude, innovation and in spirit of their gifts. ?

Pro tip:?Uphold a psychologically safe space to allow employees to experiment and make mistakes.?Watching them soar from intrinsic learning will take the company forward in ways you didn’t expect.

• Meaningful Impact ~ Up-level the job description with a pie chart showing the employee how their work fits within organizational goals.?If 40% of the organization is production, 40% of the organization is sales, and 20% of the organization is administration as an example, where does this work impact success??This helps the employee visually see their impact in the entire company and creates validity for them in their work.?Imagine them thinking “Oh, I see how my work is important to everything else we are doing here.”?That is the reaction we aim for.

Pro tip:?Develop regular and consistent communication strategies, especially during times of change, (email, office TVs, bulletin boards, digital employee marketing, manager meetings) that share accolades, production improvements, upcoming changes and overarching company goals and then most importantly tie those details to how each team drives performance towards those goals. ?

Consistency is key to all of these tips.?Employee retention only happens when employees FEEL valued and ARE valuable.?Having a solid, explicit and current job description, creating explicit boundaries for work and then providing safe space to innovate and sharing how they make meaningful impact for the company will build strong organizational bonds, unleash productivity, and create a culture where employees are proud to come to work.