Now that it’s the early part of fall, you’ve probably begun discussions about your 2022 budgets. In the startup world though, that scramble to determine your budget or AOP (Annual Operating Plan) didn’t really hit managers until late October or early November as our executives prepped for the board meeting.

Since you have some breathing room -- it’s time to get serious about where the need is in your organization for training, professional development, coaching, and more. This is probably rolled up into your “people & culture” budget.

Focus Areas for Your People & Culture Budget

This line item frequently contains all of the items like benefits, compensation incentives, company parties, swag, and employee wellness programs. Within your “people & culture” budget, you probably also have line items for learning and development.

It’s key that in 2022 that you create special line items for:

Leadership Development
DEI Training & Coaching

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There are a plethora of ways that you could be spending your leadership development or DEI budgets. When I was employed by startups in their learning and development departments, manager training was always a hot topic.

28% of HR professionals’ time is spent addressing problems caused by poor People Managers (SHRM).

Our talent teams were always overrun with trying to manage or intercede in situations where we had a manager or leader who either wasn’t managing their team well, or negatively impacting the wellbeing of their team.

If you ever find yourself identifying that there’s a leader who is negatively impacting the wellbeing of their team -- it’s time to make a performance improvement plan (PIP) for that leader.

You are probably shocked that I use that traditionally HR term “PIP” in that way -- to improve the soft skills of your leaders. Typically, I saw the Talent and HR teams use PIPs on entry level or mid-level employees focused on their traditional performance metrics (like sales, calls per hour, idle time, etc.) or for attendance issues.

It’s rare that a PIP would cover communication, interpersonal, or coaching skills for a manager.

The performance improvement plan that we need in 2021 and for 2022 is on people & communication skills to improve the overall employee experience.

Using Your Budget to Combat Turnover & Improve Well-Being

Our employees are clamoring for a change. With the continued pandemic, our employees continue to feel burnt out, ignored, and bored at work. That’s an easy recipe for high turnover. I know you’re facing the challenge of hiring right now in a climate where there’s competition for the best talent. Preventing voluntary turnover needs to be an even bigger priority for your organization.

There are a million turnover stats out there, but the ones that are sticking with me right now focus on not only the cost to recruit and train new hires.

At the lowest, the cost of replacing an employee is equivalent to 33% of an employee’s annual salary (Emplify, 2020). The Center for American progress study shared that the cost can be upwards of 213% of that employee’s annual salary for technical, skilled or leadership roles.
Let’s use the 213% stat for a moment to look at some of the costs of turnover:
Employee Salary $75K: Cost to Replace = $159K

You might be skeptical about this cost, but consider that turnover doesn’t just have a cost for recruiting and training new hires. There’s the cost to your existing team who need to process the loss of this team member, who take on more work during the interim, and likely get burnt out from doing the work of more than one person.

And that cost of $159K represents only one employee who left your company. If turnover is even remotely on your radar this year, then you’ve likely lost 5, 10, or even 25+ employees this year.

You could spend a fraction of the cost of that turnover on leadership development and high impact DEI Training & Coaching so that you can retain those employees instead of paying to replace them.

Your Leaders Make the Biggest Impact

We know that 75% of people who leave companies, leave their bosses. That is your managers, directors, VPs and Executives. The way that they lead -- aka how they interact with their teams, the way they give direction, feedback, and more -- all impact an employee’s decision on whether to stay with your company.

So it is time to consider where you’re spending those precious “People & Culture” dollars. To improve retention of your team, you’ll be wasting your time if it is only focused on perks and benefits.

Your team needs inspiration, motivation, support, balance, consistency, opportunity, and feedback. Your leaders are the ones that create this atmosphere and culture.

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58% of managers said they didn’t receive any manager training. Yikes! Your managers need help, guidance, and support towards being better leaders who know how to retain team members while getting business results.

Put your investment in improving how your leaders lead, and you’ll see improvements in productivity, efficiency, and innovation.

You can make an impact on your teams and the way that they feel at work through simple shifts in your leadership and team dynamics.

In a single Team Health Rebuilding Workshop with McLaughlin Method, you can expect these results:

80% of participants felt more connected to and supported by their team
87% of participants felt more empathy for their team members
93% of participants agreed with this statement: “because of this workshop experience, I feel valued by my company.”

Imagine what kind of difference could be made across your company with one of our leadership development programs, or repeating a Team Health Rebuilding workshop across your entire organization. Explore our programs here.

If you aren’t sure where you need to focus your culture and turnover efforts next year, take a look at the Jumpstart Engagement program. We’ll do a deep dive into your team’s needs using your engagement survey plus strategy sessions with key executives.