Striking a Balance: Retention vs. Performance in the Post-COVID Era
It’s been a while. Actually it’s been a bloody long time – I got COVID in late October and I’m only slowly emerging from it now.
People tell me that they don’t notice a difference in my contribution as I’ve come back to work, but I do. I’m not at full capability. I’m not post-COVID.
And you probably know how my blogs work – I write about something personal, turn it into a metaphor for something bigger.
So I’m wondering if we’ve worked out how to get our organizations out of the COVID era, which is marked by changing attitudes to work and a highly competitive labor market. For a lot of leadership teams, the focus has been on hanging on to the people we’ve got at almost any cost – pay more, create a more attractive workspace, be more flexible etc.
But some have found this has come at a price. While productivity rose in the first lockdowns, this quickly returned to mean. A leadership team I work with reported that the quality of work has slipped across the board.
Here’s a few things we talked about:
20% of the team still do 80% of the work and are committed to quality.
The attitude of the 20% at the other end has slipped. Knowing or believing they can get another job easily enough, we hear them say things like
“you know, I know I said I’d get it done by Friday, but, you know it’s probably more like next week. Ish”.
“you know, the remote thing really suits me. I know the policy is two days a week in the office, but yeah… nah”
“I think the software must be broken, it’s not working”
Those attitudes were starting to affect the 60% in the middle, the people who don’t do great work but they don’t break anything.
These attitudes arise where leaders put retention ahead of everything else. It’s a recipe for decline because our best performers start to get contaminated by these attitudes.
Here’s what we resolved:
Identify our top 20% and pay extra attention to them – play favourites
Identify our bottom 20% and get really clear with them about our expectations around performance and attitude from now on - things like deadlines, quality, attendance. Give them the option and opportunity to meet those standards
Continue to hold them to account against these standards, and be prepared to see them find an opportunity elsewhere (we felt that most of the under-performers would self-select that option)
Support our managers in looking after our best and letting go of the fear of losing people
This is genuine leadership. As one of the team put it, we need to be more courageous in providing opportunities for self-selection.
How does this fit with our purpose of more human workplaces? Most people derive a sense of purpose from their work, and satisfaction from doing it well. It’s a very human thing. An environment where they can do their best as opposed to being dragged into mediocrity is a much more human workplace.