Click here to read the full interview Q&A with Beaconforce.
Having the best team within your organization is primarily linked to hiring the best people and organizations that have a robust recruitment strategy will inevitably find the best candidates. However a sound strategy on how to retain that talent is even more important.
With the Great Attrition still in full flow it is evident that the organizations who have changed their behaviors to a more people centric strategy are benefiting from a lower attrition rate.
Regarding this topic, today we have the pleasure of interviewing Vicky Reddington, Co-Founder of the Amplified Group, a Beaconforce partner company.
With twenty years of experience at the forefront of change within the IT industry, Vicky and her team combine their experience with the Five Behaviors® methodology to accelerate their clients’ transformations.
Hi Vicky!
How would you define employee communication and why do you believe it is more important now than ever before?
‘Great question. Employee communication can be quite a complex area for organizations to get right. There are different types of communications from company-wide, departmental, business units, team and cross-team collaboration.
We could simplify by saying there are communications from corporate down, communication flowing back up, and don’t forget sideways.
Communications from corporate down has noticeably changed over the last couple of years due to the pandemic. We hear about more leaders doing regular hands-on meetings and generally being more visible within the business. Leaders have done a great job working on the company’s purpose. This is something which comes across strongly in the Tech Leader Survey.
Having a clear purpose is so important. Business consultant Patrick Lencioni explains that once the strategy and strategic anchors are in place, you simply keep repeating them. It’s the CEO’s job to be the “chief reminding officer.” People in the field don’t always hear about corporate strategy, so it’s crucial that leadership consistently repeat the message – it shouldn’t be changed at every all-hands meeting!
Once you have a consistent message, the question is then how do you cascade the message down the organization? That’s where OKRs fit in. You can filter the message down to individual team level.
I love the story that Patrick Lencioni tells of Alan Mulally, former CEO of Ford. When Alan Mulally joined Ford he was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. They asked “what’s the strategy?”
Alan pulls out a business card with the strategy written on it. Super simple! A couple of years later at another interview, he pulls the same card out. You need consistency.
It’s normal practice to think about how to flow communications down, but how do you ensure communications flow back up and across teams? That’s where Beaconforce fits in really nicely.
In the recent Tech Leader Survey Report published by the Amplified Group, it’s been mentioned several times the importance of focusing on people.
Why do you think a focus on people is crucial to the success of a company both in the tech industry and otherwise?
We’ve just recorded a new Get Amplified podcast with Darren Thayre, Head of Innovation, Global Strategic Initiatives at Google. Darren works with boards and CEO’s on strategy and transformation. He tells us that it doesn’t matter how much AI you have in the workplace, business is still run by people and it’s the people that make the difference. We completely agree and have been saying that the tech industry is powered by people.
To avoid the great attrition and to stay competitive, leaders have to put as much focus on people as the business.
Paul Wiefels from the Chasm Group summed this up beautifully on a podcast with us,
“Technology is very mainstream now. Tech companies are always fighting in a time-based competition. Nowadays there is not more than ten cents or pence worth of discernible difference between one technology and another in the same category. How you take things to market is just as important as what you take to market, and how you are organizing your troops within the company is even more important than it was previously.”
We are seeing growing recognition in the tech industry that how we work together makes all the difference.
Focus on your People: How effective communication leads to higher talent retention: Click here to read the full interview.
