How to keep your workers alive and loyal.

How to keep your workers alive and loyal.

By EVELYN CHUE

Companies must understand the importance of making holistic and objective decisions about talent

It was leadership guru Stephen Covey who said: “You can buy a person’s hands but you can’t buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is.”

The “heart” we are echoing here is the organisation workforce. How can we keep the lifeline of an organisation alive when we fail to understand its “heart”?

Organisations today are shrouded in economic mystification, complexity and anxiety which result in unpredictability that compounds various challenges organisations face to steer change, find and develop identified talent, prepare for the future and lead business growth.



Many factors sway an organisation’s performance and one of the most significant factors – often overlooked by most of us – is how well we understand our workforce.

The revolutionised workplace demands a good blend of talent to deliver innovative results that keep the business competitive. Attracting and retaining talent are top priorities today and this is why human resource practitioners have to gear up and proactively start solving “people” issues.

The workforce is changing rapidly. Technological advancements and globalisation are putting businesses of all sizes under immense pressure and making it increasingly difficult for organisations to recruit, motivate and retain talent.

Organisations across regions are exposed to a maturing workforce that has amassed years of experience but is now on the brink of retirement. The challenge faced by today’s leaders is to recognise that workforce diversity is not just about different cultures and gender, but also about the differences between themselves and the next generation.

They need to identify drivers which motivate these divergent groups so they can introduce flexible acquisition, retention and reward strategies that match their varied aspirations.

“We need somebody who has good analytical and critical thinking capabilities, exhibits influential interpersonal qualities, has the courage to make tough and impactful decisions under fire, and also the right experience.

Most importantly, he must be loyal to the organisation” – Does this sound familiar to you?

The talent manager’s big question is, often, how to not only retain key employees but also how to engage them in the organisation’s mission. Simple answer: Find an individual with the right blend of personality, ability and experience. Finding high-potential talent can be like searching for the Holy Grail and before it can be found, it must be identified. How?

If your organisation can invest a little to assess and ensure it finds the right candidate with the passion and ability to manage the job, you would eliminate a wide range of problems that would otherwise keep you awake at night.

Furthermore, you will be amazed at the boost in productivity and returns when you invest in the right areas. It is all about finding the right fit for the right job with the right skills and wide exposure of experience. Some organisations may think that monetary repayments will suffice to take care of the needs of their employees. However, do they even try to understand what inspires each individual?

What motivations forge them to move forward? At the same time, what hinders them and slows them down? Are you worried that your organisation’s next generation of leaders may be ill-prepared to step into executive roles?

It is essential for organisations to understand the importance of making holistic and objective decisions about their talent, rather than making judgments merely through general observations and personal gut feel which usually results in a need for damage control.

Hence, development and assessment centres are designed to evaluate talent with insights from multiple angles and provide a clearer picture of their potential contributions to their organisations. To do that, candidates are assessed across three distinct human capital factors.

Contrary to what some might believe, development or assessment centres do not necessarily refer to a physical location or building.

Instead, it could describe an approach typically comprising exercises, simulations, and psychometric assessments, to capture the dynamics of a particular role. Talents are then assessed, followed by recommendations for further actions.

These centres simultaneously evaluate participants using multiple assessors and assessment techniques, and can take one to five days, depending on the complexity and depth of requirements. Even in this tight economy, there are simple steps organisations can take to help foster a healthy working culture by keeping employees on the job and the organisational pulse alive.

Heart failure (weak workforce) can overwhelm any organisation, regardless of location, culture, size or industry. Threatening as it is, this condition can be prevented and warded off by taking a few simple steps.

Therefore, before our heart fails us, we need to have consistent health checks, as it is crucial that any symptom found is diagnosed, especially in the early stages. The earlier these symptoms are detected and treated correctly, the better our chances of managing them effectively.

• Evelyn Chue is a manager with Deloitte Malaysia’s consulting practice

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