Retaining High Potentials

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(upbeat music) In these lessons, you'll understand the importance of creating an inclusive, employee-focused workplace. You'll learn different methods to create an inclusive environment and understand the importance of work-life balance. We'll also demonstrate how you can implement a strong performance management program to provide feedback to your high-potential employees. Finally, you'll learn how to effectively support professional development and personal growth. There are many strategies your organization can use to retain high-potential employees. In general, many of the strategies we'll discuss are considered best practices because they have the potential to improve the employee retention rate across your organization. Like many employees, high potentials want to work for organizations that value inclusivity and a healthy work-life balance. Establishing a workplace culture that supports employees' efforts to achieve this balance is a good first step in reducing turnover and improving workplace productivity. Your organization can use several strategies to develop an inclusive and employee-friendly workplace. Some ways to further these goals are to ensure all company messaging uses inclusive language, offer benefits that support physical and mental health, and ensure your managers model behaviors that reflect your goals. Let's start with reviewing the messaging your company uses. It's a good practice to review all company signage, documentation, and manuals to ensure they don't contain any potentially divisive language. This might include looking at signs posted in the workplace such as those at the entrances of the restrooms, reviewing organizational policies, and reviewing job descriptions. As you review your company's messaging, you should ensure that all language is gender neutral and no discriminatory terms are used. As an example, consider the wording of a family leave policy. Instead of referring to it as maternity leave, which exclusively applies to women, consider offering a general caregiving leave. This term would be more inclusive since it could apply to all employees who may need to care for children, siblings, spouses, or elderly relatives. To further expand your workplace inclusivity, you could also consider offering floating holidays to accommodate employees with varying cultural and religious beliefs. Your organization should also review your employee benefits to ensure they provide sufficient resources for both physical and mental health. Offering appropriate levels of medical coverage as well as sufficient paid time off sends a strong message to employees that their wellbeing is important to your organization. While providing these benefits is a step in the right direction, it may not be enough to demonstrate your commitment to a healthy work-life balance. Your organization should also ensure that your leadership and management staff model behaviors that reflect an inclusive and employee-focused workplace. For example, it's not enough for your organization to provide employees with paid time off if you don't ensure that your employees' workloads can be adequately covered in their absences. Managers should be discouraged from contacting employees who are using their paid time off. High-potential employees will likely notice if managers encourage team members to schedule time off but then call during their absences to discuss non-urgent matters. This behavior can create a disconnect between what your organization promotes and what your high-potential employees actually experience. Another example of this inconsistency could be managers who never use their paid time off and regularly work beyond their normal hours while also encouraging team members to practice healthy work-life balance. When your managers' behaviors contradict your organization's messaging, it may lead high-potential employees to question whether your organization truly values work-life balance. High-potential employees may begin to question if their own advancement will be negatively affected if they don't replicate your managers' behaviors. If you want to demonstrate your support for a healthy work-life balance, be sure your management team is sending a consistent message with their behaviors. It should support an inclusive, employee-focused culture that fosters the retention of high-potential employees.