Employee retention is a high priority for businesses as the continued labor shortage affects hiring and recruitment. Is your business doing its best to keep employees by meeting their Core Needs?
Staffing shortages, recruitment struggles and increasing retirements often mean that businesses have less staff to do more work than ever before. Unfortunately, just expecting increased productivity doesn’t mean it will work. The Energy Project is an initiative to move businesses into the “Human Era” at work which they believe can actually increase productivity and performance and help close the gap.
The concept is outlined in a white paper titled Reinventing the Workplace: Meeting Peoples Four Core Needs. Citing 2014 research they look at four areas that employers should focus their efforts:
- Physical, that means ensuring that team members effectively balance intense effort with real renewal, not only in the evenings, on the weekends, and during vacations, but also intermittently throughout the workday.
- Emotional, the charge to leaders is to truly care for those they lead – not just by regularly recognizing and appreciating them for their accomplishments, but also by holding their value while delivering critical feedback, and by believing in their capacity to exceed their own expectations.
- Mental, effective leaders create an environment in which employees are empowered to set clear priorities and firm boundaries, so they’re able to focus in an absorbed way on immediate, tactical work, to take sacrosanct time for creative and strategic thinking, and to work flexibly, in ways that best suit their needs.
- Spiritual, the best leaders define a clear and compelling vision and a set of values that inspire team members – while serving themselves as role models who walk their talk.
The findings are encouraging and something to consider. Focusing on your “People” first improves their experience and in turn improves their performance which helps your business.
