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How Operational Excellence Attracts and Retains Talents

Operational Excellence is a systematic approach to improving business processes and performance. It can also significantly impact a company’s ability to attract and retain talented employees.

The Significance of Talent in Modern Business

High performers are crucial to any organization’s success. A study encompassing over 600,000 individuals across various professions revealed that top performers are up to 800% more productive in complex jobs like software development and management. However, many companies struggle with attracting and retaining such talent. A McKinsey survey found that 82% of companies don’t believe they recruit highly talented people, and only 7% think they can retain top talent once hired.

Employee Engagement and Retention

Employee engagement is a critical factor in retention. Gallup reported that over 50% of employees surveyed in 2015 were not engaged, and 17.2% were actively disengaged. Additionally, 73% were contemplating other job opportunities. The scarcer top talent becomes, the more vulnerable companies are to losing their best people to competitors, especially as younger generations exhibit less loyalty to employers.

Operational Excellence in Retaining Current EmployeesStrategyDriven Talent Management Article: How Operational Excellence Attracts and Retains Talents

 

Operational Excellence contributes to retraining employees through four main drivers:

  1. Enhanced Job Satisfaction:
    • Streamlined Processes: Operational excellence often results in streamlined, efficient processes. This can significantly enhance job satisfaction by reducing frustrations associated with inefficient workflows, leading to a more engaged workforce.
    • Employee Empowerment: A core aspect of operational excellence is empowering employees to contribute to continuous improvement. This empowerment can lead to a greater sense of ownership and loyalty among employees.
  2. Professional Growth and Development:
    • Continuous Learning: Organizations that excel operationally often prioritize continuous learning and development. This commitment to employee growth can be a strong retention tool, as employees value the opportunity to enhance their skills and advance their careers within the organization.
    • Innovation Opportunities: Operational excellence involves embracing innovation. Employees often find motivation in working for companies that are at the forefront of their industry, offering opportunities to work on innovative projects and solutions.
  3. Workplace Culture: Operational excellence contributes to a positive work environment, where efficiency, respect, and collaboration are valued. A positive culture is a key factor in employee retention, as it fosters a sense of belonging and satisfaction.
  4. Employee Recognition and Reward Systems: Effective operational systems often include performance-based rewards and recognition programs, which can increase employee motivation and loyalty.

Operational Excellence as a Talent MagnetStrategyDriven Talent Management Article | How Operational Excellence Attracts and Retains Talents

 

As operational excellence is mainly internal to the company, the challenge is to make it visible to the talent the company wishes to attract. This is how it can do it.

External Perception and Attraction of Candidates

  • Brand Image: Companies known for operational excellence often have a strong brand image. This image, reflecting high standards in efficiency, quality, and innovation, is appealing to potential candidates who seek to work in well-structured and successful organizations.
  • Market Reputation: Operational excellence contributes to a positive market reputation. Prospective employees are attracted to companies that are leaders in their field, as it suggests stability, growth potential, and a commitment to best practices.
  • Visibility Through Success Stories: Success stories and case studies showcasing a company’s achievements due to operational excellence can attract talent. Such stories often highlight innovative practices, significant improvements in processes, or achievements in quality and efficiency, which can be very attractive to skilled candidates.


Recruitment Messaging

Companies can leverage their operational excellence in their recruitment messaging, emphasizing the organization’s commitment to continuous improvement, employee engagement in decision-making processes, and the use of cutting-edge tools and methodologies.

Conclusion

Operational excellence is more than a business strategy; it’s a talent strategy. Companies that embed continuous improvement and learning into their culture not only excel operationally but also become magnets for top talent. By focusing on creating an environment where employees can grow and develop, these organizations can attract, retain, and develop the high-quality talent necessary for long-term success. The key lies in understanding the dynamic relationship between operational systems, employee engagement, and talent development. This holistic approach can transform a company into a desirable destination for the world’s best talent, thereby driving both operational and human capital excellence.

How CEOs Can Build and Maintain a Strong Company Culture

StrategyDriven Corporate Cultures Article | How CEOs Can Build and Maintain a Strong Company CultureSixty-six percent (66%) of job seekers consider a company’s culture and values an essential factor in choosing a career opportunity. The CEO is in a position to ensure that a company’s culture is strong, healthy, and nurturing. The right culture will attract the best employees and lead to better results for the company.

Make Your Values a Priority

Getting your deals right will help you build a strong company culture that supports the growth of your business. A strong company culture can attract and retain top talent, increase productivity, and create a positive workplace environment. On the other hand, a bad culture can drive employees to leave a company and even result in damaging news headlines. The CEO at TapestryHealth, Mark Hirschhorn, is often the face of an organization and is responsible for setting the tone of its culture. However, it’s also important to remember that your values aren’t just a reflection of yourself; they’re shared across the entire company. Therefore, you must prioritize your leadership values and communicate them regularly throughout your organization. This will ensure that everyone knows your preferences and buys into them.

Define Your Values

If you want to build and maintain a strong company culture, your values should be central to everything you do. They give your team a purpose and can help them align with your organization’s goals. To define your values, you should bring in a group of employees to discuss what matters most to them. These discussions should be open, honest, and meaningful. The exercise should also allow you to get a lot of feedback. This helps you make changes and updates in a way that makes sense for your business and your people. To make your values stick, you must communicate them to your employees regularly. This is especially true for your executive leadership team.

Communicate Your Values

Company culture is a complex combination of stated values and behaviors that influences tasks and initiatives, how they are done, and how people are recognized and rewarded. Strong company cultures create a shared purpose that drives a team to solve problems and achieve long-term outcomes. Employees are more likely to enjoy their work and stay for the long term when they understand what’s expected of them, their peers, and management. CEOs can build and maintain a strong company culture by communicating their values to employees at all levels. They should also practice these values by showing how they apply in real-world situations and lead by example.


Invest in Your People

Whether your company is a small business or a large corporation, investing in your people is crucial to its success. This can result in top talent attraction and retention, productivity boosts, and improved business performance. One of the most overlooked ways to invest in your people is through training and development opportunities. These can help employees feel empowered and increase their overall job satisfaction. CEOs must also be willing to engage with their leadership team and take the time to listen to them. This is an opportunity to learn more about their concerns, successes, and dreams.

Nurture Your People

If you’re a CEO, you know that company culture is crucial to your business’s success. You can only build a company that succeeds with it. So, how do you develop and maintain a strong company culture? Fortunately, there are several expert strategies that you can use. One of them is to nurture your people.

Regarding company culture, a strong team is essential for long-term success. Successful company cultures encourage lively interactions between teammates and build friendships outside work. It’s essential to take time to understand the lives of your people and care about their families, dreams, and goals. When your employees feel like they’re real people rather than just a number on your books, they will be more committed to your vision and want to work with you to achieve it.

8 Ways to Identify a Toxic Workplace

StrategyDriven Diversity and Inclusion Article | 8 Ways to Identify a Toxic WorkplaceContinuing a career in whichever field you choose is one of the largest parts of everyone’s life. This entails that most individuals spend almost, if not more, time at work than at home. Though seemingly difficult, what can make it even more strenuous is having a workplace that doesn’t make your life easier but rather harder, a toxic workplace, if you will.

A good workplace will make you feel seen, accomplished, and overall satisfied with working there, whereas, working in a toxic workplace will have many side effects on your mental and physical health, as well as your work output, and so on. Below you will find all the signs to look for when working in a work environment that may be toxic without you even knowing it.

Employee Sickness

The first sign you will notice of a toxic work environment is physical symptoms within yourself. These symptoms arise in multiple ways including burnout, fatigue, or even illness such as chronic migraines, weight loss due to multiple ailments, and even depression. If you find yourself calling in sick and having an overall negative mood, it may be time to reflect on a workplace change.

Chronic Cronyism

If you notice, your work colleagues and superiors all know each other a little too well. When a manager hires from the same homogenous circle of individuals, be that from family or friend circles, it becomes a case of cronyism. This means not only is the workplace extracting potential exterior high-performers but also creating a homogenous work culture that is unsustainable.

Gossiping

Small talk regarding guests or business partners is expected, but when small talk becomes gossip and gossip becomes overly personal within a workplace, it turns into an unhealthy partnership with colleagues. This can lead to strenuous collaboration on work projects, internal conflicts, external altercations, and so forth.

If you find yourself or your colleagues complaining to each other too often, the underlying issue is usually dissatisfaction with something within the work environment or maybe in their personal lives.


Antisocial Tendencies

Silence is often an indication of struggle and discomfort within a workplace. If your colleagues aren’t engaging with each other, nor is anyone’s body language positive, it can be a result of a prolonged decline in workplace morale and interpersonal relationships at work.

Another symptom of antisocial behavior is combativeness towards peers. If you feel you are being challenged too often, it is a telltale sign of toxicity within your work environment which can also affect your confidence and morale.

Lack of Confidence

Morale and confidence have already been mentioned, but there is another layer to workplace confidence which is being able to challenge ideas in a healthy manner. Being terrified of your superiors isn’t a healthy way to work since everyone is supposedly on the same team and is trying to find new and creative ways to move forward, which is something that cannot be done under scrutiny.

Lack of Growth

Growth equates to mobility. When looking for jobs, employees search for opportunities for growth within their workplace and personal careers, and if a company is unable to provide that, it may be a sign of a work environment that isn’t personally beneficial for you, which may even fit under the “toxic” terminology. It is important to create environments that promote growth.

StrategyDriven Diversity and Inclusion Article | 8 Ways to Identify a Toxic WorkplaceLeadership Problems

Bosses come in all shapes, sizes, and attitudes. Sometimes a disagreeable boss is the byproduct of a previous negative superior, or sometimes people just aren’t meant to manage workers in the first place. There are two extremes to this spectrum: either your superior is very passive and doesn’t communicate enough, or they micromanage everyone’s every move.

Try looking for signs of a narcissistic boss, such as a lack of empathy for struggling colleagues, exclusively talking about themself, taking advantage of situations and people, and so on.

Blurry Boundaries

A workplace is meant to run with organization, not chaos. If you find your team doesn’t have set goals, roles, or boundaries put in place, it might be time to start questioning whether the environment is one that you wish to be a part of. Clear roles must be given to each member.


About the Author

Russell Ridgeway is an American writer based in Budapest, Hungary. He writes in business, tech, and fashion as well as creative fiction. You can reach him by email ([email protected]), or on LinkedIn and other social media platforms.

Build a Strong Workplace Culture With These Quick Tips

StrategyDriven Corporate Cultures Article | Build a Strong Workplace Culture With These Quick TipsBusiness owners know that satisfied employees lead to a more profitable company. Creating a cohesive company culture takes a well-developed plan, organization, and teamwork. When you define your corporate philosophy, you give your teammates specific goals and expectations. Your employees feel appreciated, and they strive to meet goals. Valued employees are more productive and stay longer. There are many ways to build a corporate identity. Here are some ways to make a positive impact.

Know Everyone’s Job

Many employees feel frustrated and believe that management creates procedures in a vacuum. Do not implement new policies without feedback from the teammates performing those tasks. As CEO and Executive Chairman of DaVita Kent Thiry established “Reality 101.” This program required all new executives receive the same training as frontline teammates. Knowing the daily challenges helped management understand how to implement procedural or policy changes.

Define Values

Creating a mission statement is an important step in defining your company culture. Mission statements communicate your purpose to employees, management, and customers. Common values in mission statements include:

  • Improve the environment
  • Respect diversity
  • Create a workplace of trust
  • Encourage creativity
  • Expect excellence

Examine Expectations

Define your overall corporate goals. Review each position in your organization and determine how each teammate can help achieve your objective. As with any planning strategy, make sure your goals are SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based. Recognize your teammates’ accomplishments and challenges. Manageable goals are key to success.


Redefine Hiring Procedures

Traditional hiring techniques rarely identify the ideal applicant for your company culture. Build interviewing teams from all levels of your teammates. Have prospective colleagues ask questions to help understand the candidate’s personality and motivation. After interviewing, have candid conversations with everyone to make the best hiring decision. Some questions in a cultural interview are:

  • Tell me about your ideal day at work.
  • What qualities do you think are important for this position?
  • How do you handle work-related stress?
  • Describe your ideal work-life balance.
  • What do you think will be the biggest challenge in this position?

Review Benefits

Reexamine your company benefits package. Make sure that employees’ needs are met effectively and efficiently. Create surveys to ask employees what benefits they enjoy most or would like added to the package. Consider low-cost benefits, such as flex time.

Change It Up

Review your mission statement and cultural identity when you experience new challenges or exponential growth. While it may seem counterintuitive to change what has been successful, your business goals have probably changed, and how you achieve them will also. Use your SWOT analysis to evaluate external opportunities and threats and guide your company into the future. Changing your culture is not something to be taken lightly, nor should it be done quickly or frequently.

A thorough understanding of the impact you want your company to have on your employees and the environment is important to building a strong company culture. Once you define goals, you can implement the steps needed to strengthen your company from the inside out.

Successful Company Culture at Work: What It Really Takes

StrategyDriven Corporate Cultures Article |Company Culture|Successful Company Culture at Work: What It Really TakesThe world of work has changed dramatically in the last eighteen months, and as we head into a new year, there will be many companies who are looking to bring their employees back to the office or at least look for ways to improve their working culture.

Building a good company culture is not as easy as ordering a bunch of dim sum and drinking green tea, so companies must ensure that they take steps to understand what type of culture they want to foster, and then make sure that they build a company culture that is suitable for the company.

Build Motivation

While many people think that money will motivate you to work harder, it is not just about cash; it is also about your career, fulfillment, and purpose.

When asking the question ‘What really motivates people?’ you would think that putting money first was the answer given by most people.

However, most business researchers will say that money is not the most important motivator, the top three motivators are usually

  1. Achievement and recognition – A large percentage of people say that they would work harder if they got recognition through a raise or bonus.
  2. Liking your job – making the job worthwhile or enjoyable to be in is almost as important as money.
  3. Recognition – from bosses, colleagues, or teammates for good performance and effort done in the job.

Why Is Company Culture Important?

So what is company culture? A culture is a set of values, norms, and behaviors that are widely shared and accepted by the people within the organization.

The old adage “culture eats strategy for breakfast” is never truer than when you look at some of today’s best-known companies.

They have been able to create dominant company cultures that are so strong that they can eat up many other aspects of an organization where there may be strategies or ideas that could be great on paper but end up being poor practice in execution.

However, when you have a great company culture, it is much easier to attract top talent and get people to stay with your company. Talented employees are attracted by a sense of purpose, feeling valued, and getting the support they need to do their job well.

With a great culture, employees are more likely to be engaged in their work, they will recommend your products or services to others, and they may even do some word-of-mouth marketing for free on social media which can be great for your business.

The Three Main Parts Of Company Culture At Work

A company’s culture can be broken down into three main groups: Customer Culture, Organizational Culture, and Corporate Culture.

Customer Culture

Great customer culture is important for any business that wants to ensure that it has happy customers and can give them excellent service. Customer culture is something that a company should concentrate on from day one.

If a company first concentrates on deeper relationships with its current customers, then it is much easier to attract new ones.

A bad customer experience tells the world not just about your products, service or brand, but also about the type of company you are as a whole if customers are not given the support they need.

A few ways that companies can improve customer culture include:

  1. Customer service training: Get everyone in the organization to take part in the same training so that they know how to have good customer service.
  2. Empowered employees: Ensure employees are empowered and are able to help customers when they need it, even if this means going beyond their job description.
  3. A strong brand image: Make sure that frontline staff are empowered and know how they should deliver excellent customer service within your culture and brand image. This is something that needs to be emphasized at every level within the company and to be regularly reinforced through all media communication channels.
  4. Findability: Make it easy for customers to find your business and use your website. For this, it’s best to find an affordable SEO services to handle your search engine optimization, and keep your website on top for search rankings so customers can find you easily.

Organizational Culture

This is the part of a company culture that is aimed at the employees. Organizational cultures are based on key elements which can be generally separated into behavioral and cognitive factors

For instance, behavioral factors are things like rewards and achievements which help to motivate and give employees a sense of belonging within the organization. They can include:

  1. Rewards – both internal and external rewards are important, along with bonuses, cash prizes, and gifts for achievers, but also training opportunities and promotions can be valued as an achievement.
  2. Recognition – ensuring that everyone is valued and gets recognized for their contribution to the company is vital to having a great organizational culture.
  3. Support – everyone needs a bit of emotional support and encouragement when they are working, so having a good support network within the company is vital to ensuring that employees want to work harder.

Corporate Culture

Corporate culture refers to the company as a whole, not to individual employees. Corporate culture can be about core values, beliefs, and attitudes which are shared by all the employees in an organization. It may be about how managers work with staff or other external parties, or it may also cover things like relationships with clients and suppliers.

A good corporate culture can help you sell your products more easily because it is based on the company’s values, beliefs, and attitudes.

Should You Focus on Positivity or Creativity?

This is an interesting question, and it is something that companies and managers will have to debate long into the future.

There is no doubt about it, increased employee happiness has a positive effect on economic returns. So has creativity been given short shrift? Or should managers focus only on creativity when it comes to motivating employees? Is positivity more important or should we just stick to business as usual?

We have all seen many examples where people have demonstrated creativity at work by coming up with new ideas, new products, or new services. They know how good their products are, they are confident that they can sell them, and they can get the funding they require to start their business. However, in today’s competitive world, it is not enough for your ideas or products to be great, they also have to be profitable or you will not make any money.

Creativity can be a barometer of employee engagement, but it is not the only thing that matters. It’s easy to come up with ideas and pitch them internally, but in order for your good idea to turn into a profitable product, you need to work hard at turning it into a reality that your customers can enjoy and use every day.

This will require a lot of hard work on every level of your business from the CEO down to the junior members of staff.

Leading From The Top Down

For many companies, their brand image and culture are based around the top management. It is often those at the top who are most effective at communicating to staff how company values and policies should be acted on by everyone.

The top managers must be seen to be leading from the front so that employees are inspired to do a good job, as well as being rewarded accordingly. This will make them better at their jobs and more satisfied which will, in turn, lead to a positive corporate culture that attracts talent into your business.

When it comes down to it, the best way for a business leader to motivate people through their values is by communicating them clearly with all members of staff. For this, it must be communicated through a good culture (as mentioned above) as well as through training courses and performance evaluations.

Statistics indicate that recognition and rewards based on performance can have a positive impact on employees which will help to improve their work.

This may seem like a cliché, but your employees need to know that they are valued and have an important part to play in the company.

They will not just perform better, but they will feel good about coming to work every day because they know they are making a difference. You can build your business around them so that you get what you need from your team without much effort.

Interpersonal Aspects of Leadership

Interpersonal leadership refers to the relationship between leaders and their employees.

Relationships between leaders and the people that work for them are very important as they impact how good an employee is at their job, how much they are motivated, and how effective they are at doing their work.

A good leader understands the needs of their people and knows how to involve them in decisions that will help the business to be more productive.

Interpersonal leadership is essential to a company’s success, but it is not something that should be taken lightly. You need to see your employees as partners, as co-workers, as people who are performing a job that you need them to do.