Retaining Staff? Increase Retention Through Strong Teams
By Traci Scherck, MPA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Accountability, trust, and fun. What do those words make you think of?
If you said a dream team, you are right!
A dream team is one that is cooperative, collaborative and committed to each other and the key outcomes. They meet every one of their key objectives and they have fun doing it. The key here is that they have clarity in what the business strategy and outcomes they are held accountable for are.
Are you intrigued? HR (Human Resources) and the leadership team create the container for the dream teams to be created by hiring folks into these teams that have both the behavioral strengths, skills sets and clarity of the organization’s business strategy and the business results that each person and team is responsible for. Dream teams are created as a part of the people strategy of the organization. When employees know where they are going and have clarity around the outcomes they are to produce, they can get right to work!
Clear on Strategy? If not, that is a key driver to employee disengagement. Productivity decreases as engagement decreases. Clarity in the goals and celebrating outcomes increases this! Therefore, the leadership of the organization must ensure that they are doing meaningful work, that they understand what the strategy is and, that they understand what the outcomes are.
According to a Harvard study, 95% of employees do not understand or are aware of what the organization’s strategy specifically is. Every employee in the organization needs to understand what the business strategy is.
Here are three tips to communicate effectively.
- Ensure that the strategic plan is clear and communicated effectively across the organization. Examples include:
- Discussing Strategy during orientation, onboarding.
- Reinforce the strategy and outcomes during team meetings.
- Kick off new team projects with the strategy and how their work contributes and impacts the business results.
- Build the strategy and organizational why into every job description. These should be included in the essential duties for every position and should be written as SMARTY goals. This tells everyone what is important, and how the organization is measuring those outcomes.
- Align the strategic plan with performance outcomes. Celebrate key wins as a team.
When creating dream teams, leadership is bringing together a multitude of strengths in a way that minimizes weaknesses. The more time an individual can spend doing the things that are easy for them and effectively execute on the business strategy, the less time they spend being stuck in the tasks that burn them out. A collaborative environment that is high on feedback and celebrating successes increases the joy and pride in the work. When we like our work and our team, our engagement and productivity increases.
Alignment is ensuring that the right person is in the right job. Think of this as two sides of the same coin:
- Side one = the individual person
- Side two = the job – what does the job need and what does the person need
If these are not aligned, then you will have issues before you even get started and if you have individuals who are in the wrong role, they are not going to be great contributors to the team. And they are going to have to work that much harder to get the specific job done. Alignment is key, and when we know what the strategy is and what we are executing towards it is much easier to align the person with the specific job.
Now we have a team! What kind of team do we have? Each team type has a specific strategy that they are executing. According to the research and science At the Predictive Index there are nine team types that are focused on four areas:
- Teamwork and Employee Experience – this team type collaborates and builds relationships; they prefer to support others to grow and develop. They make decisions collaboratively and seek input from each other.
- Process and Precision – this team type is well organized, efficient, communicated concisely after thorough reflection on their own. They will ensure that all the processes are in place to implement, and they like to make decisions collaboratively. This team type resolves conflict by focusing on the task involved.
- Results and Discipline – this team type focuses on making decisions individually, they are detail oriented, driven, and competitive. They prefer to focus on tasks and execution.
- Innovation and Agility – this team type are our dreamers and visionaries. They are the individuals who say, “we are going to try something new and see what happens.” They are open to risk and experimentation, and they like to act quickly and assertively. They make decisions independently and see ahead to where things need to go.
Every individual has amazing strengths. Dream Teams take the strengths of each person and align it to the strategy that the team is tasked with implementing to achieve the business results. When you work on a great team, you are more likely to stay in your organization and role. Check out our podcast on this topic here.
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