Help People See their Futures with You

Our primary challenge next year, as managers and leaders, is to attract and inspire people to our teams and to recognize and reward the people we have. With record rates of quitting and a record # of job openings for every unemployed person, attracting and retaining talent is going to be more critical (and perhaps more difficult) than ever before.

To attract talented individuals to your team, we must inspire people to imagine themselves working at our companies. But what about your current team? Do they see themselves as part of your company's vision? Are they picturing themselves as integral to the success of the mission?

As we plan for next year, we should all be thinking of ways to give our teams a positive and constructive view of their future together with our companies. Here are some of the things I'm thinking about as we head into the new year, to get our team more involved and invested in our growth.

• Keep sharing your mission. Set your mission and vision statements on repeat, and just keep bringing them up in conversation, in meetings, and in how you structure your performance management. Repetition is absolutely key to memory, so don't be afraid to keep saying the same thing in different ways. Be a broken record about your vision. But (and this is important), be sure to connect mission with individual success. Meaning, don't expect altruism from your employees - they should be working for their own betterment and advancement, and this is a healthy approach to work.
• Develop career tracks. Career development is a very powerful incentive and a must-have for personal satisfaction. Does each of your roles have a path for continued development? Large companies tend to do this well, and startups, ahem, not so much. It's a great area to look to improve. Develop a flowchart for job titles - what's next? We're looking to give people a much more concrete idea of where they are going, not just where they are.
• Introduce new projects. When you start having more employees and management layers, work can become a drag if you let it. People need a sense of advancement and development to stay excited and motivated. Make sure to change things up — introduce new projects and keep people learning and growing. We're trying to set an expectation for change and to have people continually work to make systems and processes better and to not accept the status quo. Answer the question "why" before starting new projects - how does this project connect with the future?
• Celebrate and incentivize individual achievements. Keep up a fast pace toward the future by celebrating traction and wins and by highlighting people who go above and beyond. People want to know that they matter, but most importantly, that they fit into the future of the company and the overall mission. You want to celebrate individual accomplishments, but even more importantly, when these accomplishments align with the strategic vision and value of the company.
• Promote a sense of ownership. When people feel like they own their projects, they are more likely to take pride in their work and be more invested in the outcome. Allowing people to have a sense of ownership will also encourage them to come up with new and innovative ideas to support their work. For this to be successful, you really have to know what people are passionate about personally and professionally. Ideally, you want people to own projects that they also feel in some way personally connected to.
• Include equity in compensation. Equity gives your people a genuine stake in the company's future, and I believe it's a great practice to give everyone ownership. Stock options and bonus programs tied to goals can help people see that their success correlates to the company's success. You want people to see that when the company does well, they do well. Primary objective - to have at least one financial incentive where there is a 1-1 connection between the company's results and their own individual success so that they can map out how professional goals can help them meet personal goals.
• Hire for culture, no matter the role. We'll often hunt for positivity and optimism when we hire people in sales and marketing while neglecting the requirement in operational or technical functions. When it comes to personal traits and cultural fit, hire the same across all functions—the attitude of your database engineer or financial analyst matters just as much as your salesperson. Look for positive people that enjoy working toward goals together with others. Positivity energy is contagious!

People are the lifeblood of every company, and we should all be looking for ways to inspire and reward them. We're building our plans for next year to help our teams feel even more invested in their work and in our companies' future. Here are some of my ideas on how to inspire your team -- what did I miss? ??

Miles Jennings?is the Founder and President of Recruiter.com, an on-demand recruiting platform solving hiring challenges for employers from startups to the Fortune 100.?Learn more our hiring solutions today.