Manage your employees to achieve better business results.

• Author: Bissonette, Laurie
• Position: BUSINESS SENSE - Column

When you're a business owner, you have to work harder to retain top people. The world isn't getting any smaller and the workforce is becoming more mobile. Add to that generational differences and competitive pressures, and managing employees becomes a bona fide business risk that requires a dedicated effort. This subject seems to be a consistent topic of discussion with my clients.

A recent workplace survey identified that although organizations perceive a greater need to retain a talented workforce now than ever, before, many are still taking a narrow approach to managing this issue. Businesses that say "it's worked for us before" or attempt "one-size-fits-all" solutions are more likely to spend more money on retention with poorer results than businesses that align their people-management strategies to the organization's overall business strategy The survey revealed that many business owners feel that the risks they face with their workforce relate mainly to capability and capacity. Capability is generally seen as the organization's ability to build a breadth and depth of skills within its employees to allow it to compete now and in the future. Capacity is generally seen as the ability to retain critical people and teams including the ability to groom employees to fill critical roles internally. Specifically, survey respondents identified the following key risks:

* a lack of a good supply of internal candidates for critical roles;

* an insufficient pipeline of future leaders;

* difficulties in retaining key people; and

* a failure to develop the skills and capabilities which will be required by the business in the near future.

The survey respondents seemed much less concerned about factors that could help engage the workforce and possibly mitigate capacity and capability issues, such as:

* diverse workforces;

* willingness for business leaders to share employees across the organization; and

* business leaders' ability to engage with, motivate and nurture critical talent.

This is somewhat surprising in that it is generally believed that the more engaged the workforce, the higher the retention an employer experiences. The survey responses seem to indicate a disconnect with respondents recognizing that an issue may exist with engagement of employees (and therefore retention) but not being...