EPISODE SUMMARY
Businesses today are entering into yet another unknown — the post-pandemic world of work. Meanwhile, exhausted by back-to-back Zoom meetings, employees are looking for purpose and meaning. To avoid the Great Resignation, the staggering attrition rate anticipated from tomorrow’s workforce, organizations must engage their talent or risk losing them. In this episode of the Transform Your Workplace, Brandon Laws speaks with guest Jay Schaufeld, Head of HR and People Operations at HqO. The two discuss valuable retention strategies to combat this unprecedented shift and ways companies can engage employees by targeting what matters most.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Jay Schaufeld, Head of HR and People Operations at HqO, has over two decades of leadership experience within the tech and professional services industries. Jay is passionate about implementing sound talent initiatives to help scale growth within tech organizations.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, Sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
THE FOUR FACTORS OF ENGAGEMENT
“Not all that long ago, we were referring to the ‘War for Talent’ and here we are — post-pandemic or soon to be post-pandemic — addressing the same topic. And that is a shortage of talent in different sectors,” Jay began. So, how do we keep the talent that we have? How do we avoid the attrition that seems to be looming right around the corner? According to Jay, it’s all about the four factors of engagement.
The first factor has to do with employees feeling that their work matters, that they’re doing “meaningful, purposeful work.” The second factor is relationships — having a manager, a leader, or perhaps some coworkers who provide companionship and support. The third, of course, is being attached to the company’s mission or purpose. And the last is alignment with the values of the culture of the organization.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Remote (Dis)engagement
“You know, for a while, what was the trend? It was Zoom Happy Hours or Zoom Scavenger Hunts. And that’s not the right way to engage your employees or to really have an effect on culture. I think that all those things have been built up, and that’s why we’ve got this impending attrition.”
Making Changes for Retention
“The design of the Googleplex was to keep people there with free meals and free dry cleaning and free haircuts on campus. The design was that you’d really never leave. It’s far too easy to stay. And as we all hope, out of a pandemic come good things, and we’ve seen industries recreate themselves. We’ve seen companies recreate themselves. My hope is that the office experience and the employment experience change for the better. It’s no longer about how many hours I stay in the office, but instead I’m measured on my contribution and performance.”
Exposing What Really Matters
“The pandemic and working from home has shed a light on what’s really important to people — wellbeing and balance, having connection to the purpose of the organization, and loving your work. Of course, there are so many other things that are more important than these when it comes to keeping people temporarily happy.”
The Cause of Attrition
“There was a degree of loyalty gained by employers during the pandemic. Perhaps people were risk-averse to make a change during the pandemic, perhaps people were.
People felt supported by the organization — I could be at home with my kids running around in the background or my dog barking at the UPS driver and my company understood. And I think that was great. We were all dealing with it in whatever ways we had to. Now that that is coming to an end, there is this pent-up demand that people haven’t moved a lot during the last year and a half. With respect to returning to the office, it may just be that I, as an individual or as an employee, am not running at the same pace that my organization is, or I don’t agree with the return plans. And so that in itself has caused me as a candidate to consider putting my head up and looking for other opportunities.”
Getting Creative to Get Connected
“We all just got so busy and work-life suffered as a result of it. We were on Zoom calls literally back to back, and then we had our responsibilities at home to look after. And I think we lost touch. Good managers, good leaders, checked in on their employees and found ways to have one-on-ones. I saw some pretty creative stuff happening during the pandemic where a manager and an employee were going for a hike together with masks on, but they were together and they were doing stuff. And I think a lot of that suffered as we just went from meeting to meeting to meeting. I think that if people aren’t connected to work that they don’t feel inspired by colleagues and bosses that are supportive and have a relationship with the mission and the purpose.”
The Cost of Attrition
“If you consider the time and even the cost it takes to recruit — if you’re gonna use a recruiter — you could pay 20% of base salary or more. If you consider the time of the team that’s working on this open headcount on that role’s behalf, perhaps the ramp-up time, the training time. I’ve seen statistics along the way that have suggested that an open position or perhaps a wrong hire could cost upwards of three times the base salary. It really does compound and it becomes a very real barrier to your success as a business.”
What Can You Control?
“You can control your image, your brand, and your ability to attract great people, but from a retentive perspective, what really matters is that your people feel heard. Do they feel like they’re supported and do they feel good about what they’re doing and where they work? One of the things that we’ve seen during the pandemic is that it was so important to listen to your employees. We’ve done employee-sentiment surveys, we’ve done one-on-ones, we’ve shifted our semi-annual performance appraisals to 90-day check-ins and 90-day reviews. We’ve adjusted our plans. We’ve returned to the office. We pivoted after hearing from our employees what really mattered to them.”
LEARN MORE
For more information on employee engagement or to learn more about Jay’s work as Head of HR at HqO, find Jay Schaufeld on LinkedIn or head over to www.hqo.com.