One in five employees fail their probation period
This week sees an interesting report from the CIPD citing research that says one in five employees fail their probation period; most commonly for poor performance, absenteeism or poor punctuality.
It’s fascinating research because in theory people are on their “best behaviour” during the first few months of employment. Whilst I understand being terminated for a clash of values or personality, I find it surprising that absenteeism or punctuality would come to the fore so early on in the employment relationship.
Is it that people don’t care? Or that the work experience to date has already disengaged them?
Is there a particular generation that is more disengaged?
This led me to wonder if there were generations where this sort of behaviour was more prevalent.. And, I have to confess, I was thinking the “millenniels” here..
So when I came across the work Ashlee Trout, who is the founder of The Corporate Climber (which is focused on the importance of developing success in millennials to improve business performance), a HRM practitioner and a HRM Masters Student, I was interested to hear her take on engagement, disengagement and the impact on the millennials…
Ashlee has this to say:
“..There has been a large body of literature written recently about the challenges of managing millennials as top talent in the workforce. Unlike previous generations Millennials no longer live to work, instead they work to live.
As a Millennial, HRM Practitioner and HRM Masters student, it is evident Australian organisations are still exceptionally backward in terms of accepting the added value this generation can bring to the workforce.
Too often I speak to clients, students, lecturers, colleagues, friends and all other Millennials in-between who comment on how disengaged they are from both their job and their organisation.
90% of the time Millennials report that they value opportunities for growth and development, meaningful work, increased responsibility, flexibility and interactive social learning over money.
Employers are simply not investing the time or money to provide Millennial with their needs for professional growth.
The result of failing to effectively engage Millennials with such opportunities can be linked to poor performance, absenteeism, tardiness, increased employee turnover and overall business revenue.
Irrespective of your views about this group, Millennials will account for 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025. To sustain a competitive advantage, businesses will need to move forward and be more strategic…”
Following swiftly on from Ashlee’s comments, I received my daily email from the wonderful Seth Godin, who had this to say:
“Don’t do what I said, do what I meant.”
“..That’s what most leaders and owners and bosses and customers want, isn’t it?
We want employees who know the why, not just the details of the how. We want customer service people and partners and vendors who understand.
Which is what we get, at least until we encounter the first time that we’re unpleasantly surprised. It’s in that moment, when we demand a refund, or fire someone, or insist on rules being followed to the letter—that’s when it all falls apart and stops being a relationship based on understanding and turns into one that’s built on compliance to the rules.
If you want the people you work with to act with understanding, then you must trust them to use their best judgment, even when that means you didn’t get exactly what you said you wanted. The failure is yours, because you didn’t help people understand the reasoning. When you accept responsibility for that failure, when you educate instead of demand, you can gain the benefits of working with people who understand, instead of merely comply. ..”
Engagement starts early, for everyone
So my take on all this is that there will always be those employee ratbags (irrespective of the generation they find themselves ascribed to) who really don’t care.. But there is a real opportunity here, for employers to really start to build the psychological contract (as opposed to what is written down in paper), to build trust, to build engagement. And to start doing it from day one.
And as both Ashlee and Seth point out –engagement has very little to with more money. And a whole lot to do with building a meaningful relationship based on growth and trust. And that is at any age!
Want to know more about the work that Ashlee does? Check out her website on www.thecorporateclimber.com
Thanks to missionsharingknowledge.wordpress.com for the use of the image.
