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Strong engineering talent is the bedrock of modern technology companies. Software engineers, in particular, are in high demand given their expertise and skills. At the same time, there is a much greater supply of software companies and startups, all of which are jostling to hire top engineers. Given this market reality, retention of top engineering talent is imperative for a company to grow and innovate in the short as well as the long term.
Retaining employees is critical for numerous reasons. It helps a company retain experience not only in terms of employees’ domain expertise and skills, but also organizational knowledge of products, processes, people, and culture. Strong employee retention rates (>90%) ensure a long-term foundation for success and enhances team morale as well as trust in the company. A stable engineering team is in a better position to both build and ship innovative products and establish a reputation in the market that helps attract top-quality talent. The corporate incentive of maintaining high standards of employee hiring and retention is also related to the costs of employee churn. Turnover costs companies in the US $1 trillion USD a year with an annual turnover rate of more than twenty-six percent. The cost of replacing talent is often as high as two times their annual salary. This is a tremendous expense that can be averted through better company policies and culture. The onus is typically on the human resources (HR) team to develop more employee-friendly practices and promote higher engagement and work–life balance. However, in practice, most HR teams are deferential to the company leadership and that is where the buck stops. Leaders and managers have a fundamental responsibility to retain the employees on their team, as more often than not, employees do not leave the company per se, but the line manager. I will discuss best practices and strategies to improve retention, which ought to be a consistent effort across the entire employee lifecycle--from recruiting to onboarding through regular milestones during an employee’s tenure. Start at the Start More often than not, managers do not invest in onboarding preparation and processes out of laziness and indifference. Good employee retention practice starts at the very beginning, i.e., at the time of hiring. Hiring talent through a structured, transparent, fair, and meritocratic interviewing process that allows the candidate to understand their particular role and responsibilities, the company’s diversity and inclusion practices, and the larger mission of the company sets an important tone for future employees. Hiring the right people who are a good culture fit increases the likelihood of greater engagement and longer tenure at the company. Hiring managers should not hire for the sake of hiring. They should put considerable thought into each new hire and how that hire might fit in on their team. Apart from hiring, managers have other important considerations, including:
In the first few months, the new hires, the hiring team, and company are in a “dating” phase, evaluating each other and gathering evidence on whether to commit to a longer-term relationship. Most new employees make up their mind to stay or leave within the first six months. A third of new hires who quit said they had barely any onboarding or none at all. The importance of a new employee’s first impressions on the joining date, the first week, the first month, and the first quarter cannot be overemphasized. Great onboarding starts before the new hire’s join date, ensuring all necessary preparation is handled, like paperwork. Orientation programs on the join day are essential to introduce the company and expand on its mission, values, and culture beyond what the employee might have learned during the interviews. Minor things like having the team know in advance about a new team member’s join date, and readying the desk, equipment, access, and logins are tell-tale signs of how much thought and effort the hiring team has invested in onboarding. Fellow teammates also make a significant impact, whether they are welcoming and drop in to say “hi” or stop by for a quick chat to get to know the hire better, or take the new employee out for lunch with the whole team. Onboarding should not end on day one but continue in various forms. Some examples include:
A successful onboarding strategy should enable the employee to know their first project, the expectations, associated milestones, and how performance evaluation works. Keep It Up! Onboarding should be followed up with regular check-ins by the manager and HR at the one-month, three-month, and six-month mark. These meetings should be treated as an opportunity for the company to assess the new employee’s comfort level on the team and provide feedback as needed. An onboarding mentor or buddy, if not assigned already, should be provided to help the employee find their feet and learn the informal culture and practices. The manager should set up the employee for success by providing low-hanging projects that are quick to deliver and help the new hire understand the process of building and deploying a new feature using the company’s internal engineering tools and systems. With quick wins, new hires are able to build trust within the organization and gain more confidence to do excellent work. As time goes on, the role of the hiring manager becomes more prominent in coordinating regular 1-on-1 meetings, providing the new hire clear work guidelines, as well as challenging and stimulating projects. Apart from work, an introduction to the organizational setup and culture, as well as social interaction within and beyond the team is also crucial. As the new employee ramps up, it is important to give constructive feedback so that the employee can improve. Where a new employee delivers positive impact in the early days itself, the manager should highlight their work within the team and organization, and motivate the employee to continue to perform well. In addition to core engineering work, employees feel more connected when a company actively invests in their learning and development. Cross-functional training programs that involve employees across different teams foster deeper collaboration and a stronger sense of connection within the various parts of the company. Investment in employees’ upskilling and education via partnership with external learning platforms or vendors also generates a positive culture of instilling curiosity and learning. Learning new skills energizes the employees and provides them opportunities to grow and develop. They can then apply the newly learned knowledge and skills to pertinent business problems. It creates a virtuous culture that yields overall positive outcomes for the employee and employer alike, and positively influences the long-term retention rates. New employees generally feel the need to be positively engaged. A powerful mission statement can sometimes convert naysayers faster and generate a company-wide sense of being part of something impactful. This fosters deeper engagement, loyalty, and trust in the company and helps employees embrace company values, resulting in better employee retention rates. Frequent town hall meetings from the leadership enable a new hire to understand the organization as a coherent whole and their particular role in furthering the company’s mission. Listen to Feedback The diverse organizational efforts to onboard, engage, and enhance new employees’ perception of the company are bound to fail if the organization does not seek and act on any feedback shared by the new hires. Companies ought to create an internal culture of open communication whereby they seek feedback from employees via surveys, meetings, and town halls, and showcase transparent efforts in implementing employees’ suggestions and feedback. Regular 1-on-1 meetings with managers should be treated as an opportunity to gather feedback and offer the employee insights into whether and how the company is taking action on that feedback. However, in spite of organizational efforts to improve employee satisfaction and wellbeing, some attrition is inevitable. Attrition rates of more than ten percent is a cause for concern, however, especially when top-performing employees leave the company. Exit interviews are typically conducted by HR and hiring managers, but in practice these are largely farcical as the employees hardly share their honest opinions and have lost trust that the company can take care of their career interests and development. Companies can implement processes that bring greater transparency around employee decisions related to hiring, promotion, and exit. These processes will also hold HR and managers to greater accountability with respect to employee churn, and incentivize them to increase the retention rates in their teams. In past generations, job stability was a paramount aspiration for employees which meant they typically spent all their working lives at the same company. In today’s world, with a plethora of enterprises and new startups, high-performing talent is in greater demand and it is possible to accelerate one’s career growth by frequently job hopping and switching companies. Nowadays, feedback about company processes, culture, compensation, interviews, and so on, is available on a plethora of public platforms including Glassdoor and LinkedIn. Companies are now more proactive in managing their online reputation and act on feedback from the anonymous reviews on such platforms. Conclusion Employees in the post-Covid remote-working world are prone to greater degrees of stress, mental health issues, and burnout, all of which have adverse impacts on their work–life balance. In such extraordinary times, companies face the unique challenge—and opportunity—to develop and promote better employee welfare practices. At one end of the spectrum, there are companies like Amazon. In 2015, The New York Times famously portrayed the company as a “bruising workplace.” Then, in 2021, The New York Times again reported on Amazon for poor workplace practices and systems, prompting a public acknowledgment from the CEO that Amazon needs to do a better job. On the other end of the spectrum, there are companies like Atlassian or Spotify that have made proactive changes in their organizational culture and are being lauded for new practices to promote employee welfare during the pandemic. Companies that adapt to the changing times and demonstrate that they genuinely care for their employees will enjoy better retention rates, lower costs due to frequent rehiring, and long-term employee trust that conveys the company as a beacon of progressive workplace culture and employment practices. Related Blogs
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Published by StatusHero Introduction
Teams are the building blocks of successful organizations. The success of modern technology companies is driven to a large extent by their engineering and product teams. It is crucial for new engineering and product team leaders to maximize the productivity of their respective teams while ensuring a strong sense of team spirit, motivation, and alignment to the larger mission of the company, as well as fostering an inclusive and open culture that is collaborative, meritocratic, and respectful of each team member. Effective team development and management is therefore critical for engineering and product leaders, and ensuring robust team development at scale remains a big challenge in the face of changing work conditions. Despite the importance of team building and development, not many leaders are trained to succeed and hone their leadership skills. In many cases, individual contributors who progress or transition to the managerial track may not have the aptitude for developing teams nor have the necessary experience or training in this vital aspect of their new role. Although team development is more an art than a science, this topic has received significant interest from the industry as well as academia, leading to structured team development theories and strategies. In this article, you’ll explore a list of curated tips for engineering and product leaders to better manage the development of your teams and accelerate your learning journey on the leadership track. This particular set of tips focuses on building team cohesion, facilitating the five stages of team development, and providing structures for effective teamwork and communication that foster an open and collaborative team culture. Regular Check-Ins One of the fundamental responsibilities of a team leader is to have periodic check-ins with team members, both individually and as a group. These meetings serve as an opportunity to assess each team member’s work performance, their attitude and motivation toward their respective projects, and even their sense of belonging and identity within the team and the organization at large. These regular one-on-one meetings with direct reports also help to bring to light any professional or personal concerns that the manager can then try to address, whether on their own or with the support of colleagues from the human resources department. Group meetings are also essential to allow team members to gather and discuss work issues as a group and voice any concerns that may affect the entire team’s output, productivity, efficiency, or morale. Such group meetings also provide a window for colleagues to learn more about the work and progress made by other members in the team, as well as provide a collaborative atmosphere in which they are encouraged to share their opinions or suggestions. Holding regular retrospectives is a great way to foster discussion and collaboration. As you can see, both individual and group meetings serve as a vital opportunity for team leaders to check the pulse of each member and the team as a whole to assess whether any interventions are necessary to uplift productivity and motivation. Sometimes, these kinds of meetings can be conducted as a retreat or simply at an off-site location to enable team members to bond in a fun environment and encourage more open communication about the team’s development and progress. Structured Work Team members benefit immensely from a high-level structure to guide their work and appropriately allocate their time and resources to the various projects they are involved in. Ideally, all employees should be assigned projects that suit their particular skill set and interests and should be empowered to take ownership for the success of their projects. With individual owners for each team project, the role of the manager is to simply serve each colleague in terms of offering strategic guidance, providing additional resources or bandwidth, and removing any technical or organizational blocks that may otherwise impede their progress. In addition to a clear and structured assignment of work projects, teams also benefit from having a structured work cycle. For instance, engineering teams usually employ an Agile methodology and a regular Scrum cycle to plan their work in sprints and evaluate their progress. Using these proven methodologies helps team members plan their work effectively and encourages feedback from colleagues and the managers to weigh into project planning and management. Over time, if these processes are followed diligently, teams become vastly more organized and productive, leading to more successful projects and deliverables. Five Stages of Team Development According to research by renowned psychologist Bruce Tuckman, there are five distinct stages in a team’s development. These include the following: Forming This is the first stage in a team’s development, in which team leaders introduce individual team members, highlight their respective experience and skills, and facilitate interactions among the team. Knowing each other’s core strengths helps team members better understand who to reach out to for help or collaborate with to execute their projects successfully. Ideally, this stage should be revisited each time a new colleague joins the team to ensure that they feel welcome and to stimulate effective onboarding. Storming Storming is the next stage in a team’s development, which involves team members openly sharing their ideas for current work or new projects in front of the entire team. Team leaders can facilitate this by organizing meetings or events such as hackathons. During this brainstorming stage, it is important that each individual is allowed to freely express their opinions even if they are in conflict with others’. This provides leaders an opportunity to provide high-level clarity and showcase their leadership by effectively resolving any conflicts and motivating team members to disagree and commit for the greater good of the team. Norming During this stage, the team has crossed the initial hurdles and resolved differing opinions, allowing them to begin to hit their stride and work more productively as a unit. With a clear roadmap and a better sense of team success, individual employees begin to celebrate each other’s strengths and weaknesses and collaborate more effectively. Team leaders should congratulate themselves for attaining the norming stage but also be aware of the need to maintain the team’s motivation and momentum toward achieving their goals. Performing By this stage, a team benefits from high levels of cohesion and trust in each other. Teams are more efficient and can self-sustain their progress and velocity with little oversight or push from the team leaders. This enables them to take on more challenging and audacious projects and push the team’s limits in a positive manner. During this stage, team leaders can step in to hone individual team members’ strengths and help them develop and strive for the next step in their careers. Sincere team leaders leverage their coaching and mentorship skills to empower individuals to progress toward their peak efficiency and realize their full potential at work. Adjourning By this stage, teams have completed their projects. This is an excellent opportunity to discuss what went well, what did not go so well, and how to improve and implement new strategies for future team projects. This is a good time to celebrate individual and team successes and to congratulate employees in a public forum, motivating them to strive for even greater success in the future. Team leaders should also take the feedback from the team and leverage it to improve their team building and development methods. Conclusion Developing teams of engineers and product managers is a critical responsibility for the leaders and managers of modern technology companies. When teams operate at their best, the organization as a whole benefits from their productivity and positive momentum. In this article, you’ve learned several tips and strategies on how engineering and product team leaders absorb and implement in their respective teams. These include conducting regular check-ins with individual employees as well as the entire team, providing a structured framework for carrying out their work and executing projects successfully, and following the principles from the five stages of team development. Essentially, leaders should strive to build a team where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This not only requires substantial care, attention, and efforts from the leaders but also a high level of empathy and understanding of each individual in the team. Teams with strong, empathetic, servant leaders rise above other teams in an organization, attracting better and more strategic projects and opportunities for collaboration, ultimately resulting in a win for every team member as well as the team leader. Published by StatusHero Introduction
Remote work has become increasingly common in the past few years. With seventy-six percent of employees saying they don’t want to be in the office full time, if at all, remote work is probably here to stay. But this type of work does have its disadvantages. Organizations face the challenge of virtual team building and maintaining the company culture, despite their teams being scattered across the globe. Fostering a strong sense of team spirit and camaraderie is essential for employees to feel connected to their work, their colleagues, and their employer. For remote teams, however, team-building exercises are often an overlooked essential activity. Platforms that are primarily used for team communication and collaboration, like Zoom, Slack, or Discord, can also be leveraged for fun and engaging team-building events. With remote work, employee interactions are often almost entirely work-related, without the usual water cooler break chats. Though this may potentially boost productivity, it will likely do so at the expense of team members’ morale and sense of belonging that’s fostered by casual, friendly interaction with their coworkers. In this article, you’ll learn about five 5-minute team-building activities that can help employees unwind, bring them together, and promote team cohesion. These activities can help employees share their fun, quirky sides, and offer everyone a bit of a break. Five 5-Minute Team-Building Activities While there are many great ways for your team to interact and do things together, this list can serve as a good starting point. It focuses on team-building activities that can be done quickly, with little or no preparation, but still offer plenty of opportunity for bonding, laughter, and understanding between teammates. Share Your GIF In this activity, everyone shares a GIF or a meme that represents how they feel, or how their weekend or previous day was. Websites like Giphy and Reddit are full of fun content that’s sure to elicit a laugh. This activity can be held in real time at the start of a weekly meeting, or asynchronously on Slack or Discord. You could even use it as part of a daily check-in. Why This Activity? If a picture says a thousand words, a GIF says even more. This activity helps employees express themselves, and maybe share a laugh. It can also provide conversational fodder for later, either with the whole group or in small, spontaneous groups on platforms like Slack. Virtual Hat In a virtual hat game, everyone adds one or more facts about themselves or brief anecdotes about their lives to a “hat” from which the facts will be drawn. For remote teams, the “hat” can be a simple shared Google doc. To play the game, someone reads one of the facts, and participants try to guess which of their teammates submitted it. The more unexpected or unlikely the anecdotes shared are, the more fun the game is. It’s similar to the game “Never Have I Ever”, and leaves people with a sense of amazement (or at least amusement) at some of the inspiring, unlikely, or just plain weird things people in the team have done in their past. You could also do a themed version of this, in which all the facts have to relate to a certain topic, such as past jobs, animals, work-related skills, or hobbies. Why This Activity? In a remote environment where work-related talk dominates, there aren’t many organic opportunities to share personal stories and let coworkers discover each others’ personalities. This activity often reveals unique traits and experiences, which can lead to more conversation between employees, give employees a better understanding of their coworkers’ skills, and even give managers a better idea of how employees might be able to grow within the company. #Dog-of-the-Day If you already use team collaboration software like Slack, Discord, or Teams, there are probably plenty of channels about work, but they don’t have to all be about work. Something like a #Dog-of-the-Day channel to allow people to share pictures of pets can really boost morale. Many corporations have dog-friendly policies for their physical office, and studies show that these reduce employee stress and improve employee engagement and retention—regardless of if the employee has a pet or not. Though studies haven’t been done on the effect of sharing pet pictures virtually, social media has plenty of people who feel it’s the best part of their day. Why This Activity? People love their pets—and most people love seeing other people’s pets, too. In remote settings, conversations are dominated by work-related messages and notifications, and pet photos can be a soothing break. It also offers something for employees to bond over, commiserating about dogs who demand to be walked at four in the morning or sharing pet-related hijinks and mishaps. Show and Tell Before your next team meeting gets going, take a few minutes to go around and offer people the chance to share something they’re proud of, happy about, or enjoying lately. These things might be physical objects they can actually show, like a sweater they’re knitting or their new keyboard, or less tangible things they can tell the team about, like having a great view of a recent meteor shower, finishing their first 5K, or the fantastic bread they made last weekend. Why This Activity? It’s nice to take a few minutes to recognize the things that are going well for your teammates, and to celebrate their victories, however small, with them. It also gives people an opportunity to learn more about their coworkers’ lives outside of work, and a chance to connect over shared interests that wouldn’t have come up otherwise. Daily Photos When everyone’s in the office together, people bond naturally and instinctively by complimenting someone on their new haircut, asking what that delicious-smelling lunch is, or grousing together about the lousy weather. With a team scattered across the country, if not the globe, this sort of casual, friendly interaction is much harder. It’s easy to work with someone for months or even years, and then realize one day that you don’t know anything at all about where they live, or what their life is like outside of work. Similar to #Dog-of-the-Day, a channel could be created for your team to share pictures from their lives: cute new shoes, a snowy morning, newly reorganized desk, or the first flowers of spring. Why This Activity? Sharing photos can be a great way to connect your team. It lets people share things that matter to them, and photos are an easy way to spark conversations about cooking, travel, gardening, hobbies, organization, and almost anything else people want to share. Conclusion Remote working is a challenge not only for the employees, but also for managers and leaders who care about creating a healthy, engaging work environment. Virtual work is dominated by work-related discussions, which can create fatigue and even burnout if not managed carefully. Fostering a sense of camaraderie and team spirit with fun and easy team-building activities helps boost morale, create friendly bonds between teammates, and make employees feel valued and respected as people, not just workers. Team-building activities can bring your team together, wherever they’re located—no office required. |
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