Family business culture: our best advice for attracting, retaining, and motivating your workforce in 2023

Your culture is your biggest differentiator. It’s what sets you apart from all others.

If your team is solid, strong, and invested, your company will be ready for any uncertainty that lies ahead.

Want to attract, retain, and maintain your workforce in 2023?

We advise that you orient yourself around these 5 trends.

1. Employees want more (and less) from work

Anthony Klotz, the professor from Texas A&M that coined the term “The Great Resignation” was quoted as saying that “There’s now a greater ability for people to fit work into their lives, instead of having lives that squeeze into their work.”

How can we help ourselves and our team feel like they are getting more from work while taking less of them?

• Employees are seeking purpose driven organizations
• Employees want to feel valued and heard
• Employees want to get back what they put in

No one wants to spend their valuable time working on things that don’t seem to matter.

Your team wants to feel PURPOSEFUL. When you are feeling purposeful, work may be hard, but it feels right, and it feels worth it.

Build a team that finds their purpose in the mission of the company.

2. The work PLACE continues to change

According to a survey done by Prudential Insurance, 9 out of 10 workers want the option to work at least ONE day from home.

With that in mind, what is going to be best for your organization?

Here are some crucial questions to think about and discuss:

• When will everyone work?
• Where?
• How?
• What are the benefits and the downfalls to each?
• What are the impacts to customer or client deliverables?
• What are the impacts to the operations of the organization?

Involve everyone. You may not gain 100% consensus, but if people feel heard they will understand why it was chosen.

This is also a great time to talk about boundaries in the workplace. Is it OK to send a text at 9PM? Are employees expected to check their email and respond after hours? (If not…are you emailing after hours and setting an unintentional example?)

3. Flexibility and Structure

One of the clear indicators of a business being in its PRIME is when it has discovered the balance between flexibility and structure.

Every organization is different due to the nature of what they sell and how they operate. It may take some trial and error to establish what works for your business, but it’s helpful to ask these questions:

Where can we be flexible?

Where do we need to have solid structure?

For example, if you wanted to test out a 4-day work week, you would want to think through how to achieve this balance between flexibility and structure.

Would all people be off on the same day of the week? Would that mean that your business would only be open 4 days a week?

Or would your business be open 5 days a week, with different people taking different days off each week? What impact would this have in terms of collaboration? Would there be delays when someone who is AT work needs something from someone who is OFF that day?

Does the customer expect you to be open 5 days a week?

You want to deep dive all scenarios to see how far you can take the flexibility vs. the structure.

Communication is critical here.

You need to be transparent in your decisions and your assessment. Ask for feedback from all your stakeholders to make sure you are seeing from all sides. Then communicate accordingly.

Poor communication can diminish trust, so you want to make sure everyone is getting the information or changes in an appropriate amount of time.

4. Employees want growth and feedback

People want more growth opportunities from their organization. This can take the form of continuing education and feedback.

Do they have a certain skill that they can build upon? What is the next level for their skills? Is there someone in the organization that would be a great mentor? Could you provide a professional coach?

Business leaders can often underestimate the power of feedback as a growth tool. Team members want it more often and less formal.

While a formal annual or biannual review is a great practice to keep, being intentional with giving the feedback routinely – even daily – can be a huge change maker.

Consider: are you only giving feedback for performance that has an opportunity to improve? Noting when someone does something exceptionally well can create an exponential change in their output.

Feedback is also a two-way street.

Exercise your emotional intelligence by being vulnerable and open to feedback on your leadership style and decision making as well! Growth is for leaders, too!

5. Employees leave managers

This is not news to anyone. We all know that people leave bad managers and leaders.

A big shift has taken place in what is expected of managers.

Soft skills are needed now more than ever. Understanding employees from a place with high emotional intelligence is critical to the success of the organization. Managers need to:

• Put the right people in the right places
• Provide the tools and resources they need
• Communicate strategy

Taylor Swift said “Strategy sets the scene for the tale”

When we incorporate this into the business world, we are saying that the strategy for the company is going to set up how well your company achieves their goals.

The role of the manager is to communicate it to their team so that they can live out the tale. They can make it come true.

What’s your people plan for 2023?

Be honest. How are you doing in each of the above areas?

• How well are you meeting your team’s needs for purpose and fulfilment?
• How clear are you about how and where work is performed?
• How sharp are you at determining which situations needs flexibility or structure?
• How effective is your company at providing employee feedback? Do you provide enough growth opportunities to keep your people happy?
• Do your team members feel supported and understood by management?

We firmly believe that these trends are not going away and will continue to escalate in importance.

If you have work to do in these areas, we recommend making people the largest part of your plan for 2023.

People are critical to the success of your company – now more than ever.

Your company can thrive if it can attract, retain, and motivate the best workforce.

If you’d like some assistance with leadership training, succession, or creating a talent management plan, book a free consultation call with one of our advisors. We’d love to help.