Nick Moroutsos epitomizes success. At 44, he has it all – a nice family, an amazing job, and the respect of his peers. Yet, this isn’t enough. The pandemic has caused him to rethink his priorities. After being named the head of Janus Henderson Investors in 2019, and the successor to legendary “bond king” Bill Gross, Moroutsos will step away from this position to focus more on his wife and kids.
He isn’t the only one rethinking his priorities. Prudential’s Pulse of the American Worker Survey found that one in four plan to look for a new job after the pandemic. Among millennials, the largest generation in the workforce today, that number is one in three (34 percent).
This is a troubling prediction for development officers.
We are in a profession whose members seemingly contradict themselves. An overwhelming number of fundraisers – 84 percent – report job satisfaction, yet more than half are likely to leave their job within two years.
In my last post, I looked at organizational and managerial practices that create toxic environments. Certainly, major issues, such as poor supervision, unclear or unrealistic expectations, or an unhealthy work culture – predictably lead to turnover.
But the reasons for leaving now may be more nuanced.
This may call for a complete 180 in our thinking about retention. Strategies from yesteryear will likely be inadequate or ineffectual. A counter-offer, for instance, will probably be offered too late in the game. An exit interview accomplishes little. Attempts to understand employee dissatisfaction should have occurred much, much earlier. And annual check-ins through performance reviews are usually not very productive. According to Gallup, only 14 percent of employees feel that performance reviews inspired them to improve and, alarmingly, many reviews were so bad they actually made performance worse one-third of the time.
Here’s the reality: thoughtful retention planning needs to begin the moment an employee is hired.
In order to increase job satisfaction and encourage workers to fully commit to your organization, consider these suggestions:
Be flexible: If managers had reservations about remote work, the pandemic should have allayed some of their fears. A recent study found that working from home is just as effective as working from the office and, in some cases, it increased productivity.
Fundraisers proved to be adept at making remote options work, and found surprisingly positive outcomes to cultivation via remote techniques. Donors didn’t necessarily drift away. Instead, there was often more thoughtful intentionality to our interactions – and donors responded accordingly.
According to the Prudential survey, 87 percent of US workers want to continue to work remotely at least once a week. A flexible work schedule should not be a deal-breaker. In fact, it could give employers a competitive advantage.
Beyond the flexibility of remote work, employers would be smart to consider changing policies and practices to promote healthier work-life balance. Simple things – discouraging after-hours messaging and actively encouraging employees to take their vacation time – could go a long way in creating a friendlier work culture. Modeling is essential: if leaders practice these things, others will follow.
Exercise Relational Intelligence: Therapist Esther Perel wrote about the growing identity economy in a recent Fast Company article. Her patients have veered away from the usual topics related to marriage and family, and are focusing more on workplace relationships. Essentially, patients were asking if they wanted to make money or if they wanted to make meaning. After a traumatic 2020, workers are looking beyond the traditional incentives, like salary and promotion opportunities. Now, people want assurance that their employer is personally invested in them. For instance, does your company care about your growth? Will loyalty be reciprocated? Do workers feel valued and included?
In other words, to retain valued professionals, employers must consider these new essentials – are they meeting the workers’ sense of purpose, fulfillment, and growth? As Perel pointed out, what we do is often conflated with who we are. Self-identity and work-identity are fused.
Effective leaders will increasingly focus on the whole person, and understand that an employee’s professional success hinges on how they are doing in other aspects of their life. Perel refers to this as relational intelligence – how we connect with others, how we build trust, and how we handle conflict.
Recognize and appreciate: A Chronicle of Philanthropy/AFP survey in 2019 revealed that nearly one-third (30 percent) of fundraisers were dissatisfied with the level of recognition for their accomplishments. This seems like a pretty easy fix, especially because recognition rarely requires grand gestures, such as being named “employee of the month.” Recognition and appreciation can be found in quieter moments, like taking the time for an unhurried conversation to check-in, or seeking input for a new project. In other words, managers can vastly improve relations by simply showing-up, listening, and recognizing another’s worth. Making the invisible employee feel seen.
This seems so simple, but I know it’s hard. In our rush to complete our to-do lists and fight deadlines, slowing down and being intentional about conversations seems almost like an extravagant luxury. But it will pay off. Your workers will feel valued, and the constant churn of new fundraisers may slow considerably.
These suggestions don’t offer a panacea for halting turn-over, but I predict that these steps – focused on basic decency and humanity – will go a long way in keeping your valued professionals.
Let me know what you think.