Organizations need to be prepared for disruptions

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Making sure that a new employee fits into the culture of an organization is just as important as ensuring they have the knowledge and skills required to perform well. Sometimes, even if a company strives to hire for fit, a new employee may not assimilate into the culture as quickly as their leaders—or they themselves—would like.

Whether a new team member is getting along well in their new role or is having trouble fitting into the culture, it’s up to the team leaders to guide them and help them grow. Here, 15 members of Forbes Coaches Council discuss concrete ways leaders can give every new hire an immediate and lasting sense of belonging.

1. Remind Them Why They Were Hired

Rather than being frustrated by someone’s failure to assimilate, I encourage leaders to leverage the differences and unique strengths of each team member. Leaders can give new hires an immediate and lasting sense of belonging by coordinating with interviewers to share the specific positive feedback and strengths that emerged in interviews and reiterate why those strengths are so critical to the team. – Kayla Cartwright, ADAPTOVATE

2. Share A Personal Detail About Yourself

Sharing culture can be a great way to help a new hire assimilate quickly. Leaders can share something about their personal life, highlighting culture, and have the new employee reciprocate. During this discussion, leaders can take time to explain some of the “work family” culture and how the new employee fits right in based on the conversation. – Jarret Patton, DoctorJarret PLLC

3. Allow Yourself To Be ‘Seen’

Employees are human. They want to believe, feel and see that they are working with and for other humans. Leaders can support a culture of belonging by allowing themselves to be “seen”—showing their own weaknesses, fears and frustrations. The more leaders show up in a human way, the more all employees will believe that it’s okay for them to be human as well, which increases a sense of belonging. – Yvette Costa, Velocity Advisory Group

4. Have Culture Immersion Check-Ins During The First Month

I recommend culture immersion check-ins throughout the first 30 days. Pair the employee with a variety of colleagues, say two per week, for a month. The focus of the conversation should be on culture and navigating company practices. At the end of each conversation, have the employee restate their insights to ensure understanding. Then, each week, let the employee verify their progress with their manager. – Karan Rhodes, Shockingly Different Leadership (SDL)

5. Make Them Feel Needed And Known

Two things will help new employees feel like they belong: Make them feel needed and known. If they feel needed (that is, that their efforts will make an impact on something bigger than themselves) and known (that is, that the company sees them as a unique, valuable person, not just someone who fills a role), they will very quickly feel like they belong at the new company. – Cole Taylor, The Starting Line

6. Provide Clarity About Their Strengths

Provide clarity about the new hire’s strengths and why they were hired. Give them examples of what “right” looks like inside the team based on company values. The clearer the picture, the more likely they will immediately get it and know how to feel seen, valued and heard. The early time managers spend with new hires is a great time to build good rapport up front. – Shelley Smith, Premier Rapport

7. Be Mindful Of Psychological Safety

Belonging begins with psychological safety and inclusion. While helping new employees learn the company’s culture is vital, leaders should also be mindful about how the new employee is introduced within the organization to ensure a strong start to their performance. This includes coordinating with them to meet other key employees and assigning them early quick-win projects to build their confidence. – Julianne Cenac, The Leader Channel

8. Hold Weekly Check-Ins With Them The First Three Months

Create a ritual of informal weekly check-ins during the first 90-days. This becomes a sacred space for the leader and employee to continue the process of getting to know one another. This time invites the employee to share what they have experienced and observed and ask questions about implicit cultural norms. The impact of this dedicated time is the cultivation of safety, trust and belonging. – Angela Cusack, Igniting Success

9. Send A Gift With A Handwritten Card

Remember the human touch, especially if you principally work remotely. Send a gift with a handwritten card. Reach out for a conversation early and ask the new employee what would help them get settled. And don’t be “one-and-done” about it; put in regular time to connect and chat. The time you invest will be repaid many times over by developing an engaged and productive team member. – Gary Crotaz, Gary Crotaz Ltd.

10. Hire For Value-Add And Celebrate Uniqueness

Rather than hiring for “fit,” hire for value-add. Empower new employees with information and a clear integration plan. Creating a sense of belonging takes intentional effort and ongoing communication. What motivates the employee? What matters to them? What makes them feel belonging? It takes a culture of safety, diversity, true allyship and openness. Genuinely celebrate their uniqueness. – Manisha Dhawan, MPath Coaching

11. Work Together On A 90-Day Plan

Jointly create a 90-day plan. This ensures expectations are clear and provides a roadmap the new employee can follow. Include people they should meet, processes they should learn and agreement on key accomplishments and milestones to achieve. With this guidance, they gain a sense of purpose early on. Furthermore, they feel connected to the organization quicker, and that will extend well beyond 90 days. – Shelley Hammell, Sage Alliance, Inc.

12. Be Present From Their First Day

One of the most important things managers can do for new employees is to show them they care. Show up on the employee’s first day, introduce yourself and let the new hire know how much you’ve been looking forward to them joining. If managing remotely, use Zoom or Microsoft Teams to welcome them personally. Schedule recurring one-to-one meetings to get to know them better, and introduce them to their peers. – Dennis Kight, it works! LLC

13. Assign A Mentor Or Set Up A Buddy System

One of the best ways to integrate and assimilate a new hire into an organization and its culture is to assign a mentor and/or set up a buddy system. Having that one “go-to” person in their corner to ask questions of, help solve issues or help to assimilate into a new role will make a world of difference in today’s fast-paced virtual working environment. Feeling welcomed and invited into the inner circle is essential! – Izabela Lundberg, Legacy Leaders Institute

14. Inspire Via Intense Emotional Events

To anchor a feeling of belonging, create an intense emotional event that inspires a feeling of genuine love and safety. This can be achieved through an experience (or even showing a video) where employees are having fun or doing something meaningful, such as volunteering together. The key is to engage the heart and express to the applicant that they are wanted, valued and a member of the “family.” – Vered Kogan, Momentum Institute

15. Have Nonwork Conversations

Get to know them on a human level. Empathy is walking in the shoes of others. Leaders need to stay connected and make sure they have time in their calendars for nonwork conversations, where they should ask questions to really understand the person they are leading. Once you truly know them, you can lead them effectively, and they feel that sense of belonging and value as a human, not a result. – Alex Draper, DX Learning Solutions

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The pandemic has triggered myriad societal and workplace shifts, from hybrid work styles to a rise in remote collaboration technologies. Perhaps even more notable is a transformation in workers’ mentalities and mindsets. Many are reassessing their career goals, and some are quitting workplaces that no longer serve their needs.

It’s clear that what’s been dubbed as The Great Resignation is in full force: according to the Department of Labor, in November 2021, the number of people quitting their jobs hit a record high of 4.5 million. For the first time, the power dynamics between employers and employees are shifting. Employers no longer hold all the power and executives across industries are grappling with how to attract and retain talent. For those reassessing their talent needs and company culture in 2022, these three strategies will help them not only survive The Great Resignation, but build an employee-focused company that can retain top talent and thrive long-term.

1. Invest in upskilling and professional development.

High-performing employees value being in an environment where they are challenged and have the opportunity for professional growth. With an increasingly competitive job market, companies should ensure that their most valuable employees have opportunities for learning and development. As the founder and CEO of a technology startup, I’m always conscious about providing training to help people learn new technical skills including the basics of computer programming. Developing basic programming skills is an excellent way for employees to increase their productivity and comfort with software. It provides them with opportunities to automate repetitive parts of their work, helps them better engage with our technical customers, and improves collaboration with their technical peers.

Providing the framework where people can coach each other is also equally important. For example, our apprenticeship program for our engineering team has been a great way to hire talented early-career engineers while also giving more experienced team members a chance to coach and mentor.

This doesn’t require a huge investment. Some of the best opportunities for upskilling and development are free and can increase productivity and impact. In addition to providing employees with fun and valuable resources for learning and development, it’s also essential to allow employees to apply their new skills. One of the best ways to encourage this is to instill a value of “Intelligent Risk Taking.” It’s important for employees to feel comfortable proposing and working on new initiatives—even if there is a risk of failure. When we celebrate both successes and failures, employees will be more comfortable applying their new skills and further contribute to the success of the business.

2. Ensure employees are rewarded when the company grows.

Especially at earlier stage businesses, employees value being part of a company’s growth. Companies should make equity a meaningful part of each person’s compensation package. And, as employees advance in their role or tenure, it’s essential to give them opportunities to earn additional equity.

While an increasing number of companies include equity as part of an employee’s compensation, many do it in an inconsistent way that can confuse employees or force them to make difficult financial decisions. For example, most companies that grant stock options to employees also require employees to exercise the options quickly after leaving the company. Exercising illiquid options can be very costly for employees and impacts their ability to benefit from the equity they earned for their contributions to the business. To alleviate this at my company, we’re one of an increasing number of startups that have a 10-year exercise window for employees who have been at the company for at least two years.

It’s also essential for a company to set clear expectations to employees about its plans and how those plans may influence the value of equity. MailChimp recently received criticism for not granting equity to employees and telling them that they had no plans to be acquired. When MailChimp ultimately accepted an acquisition by Intuit for $12 billion, employees were rightfully frustrated for feeling misled. Growing companies that aren’t working towards an acquisition or IPO may consider profit sharing as an alternative way to reward employees for their contributions.

3. Remember that rewards are not just monetary.

Many companies fail to sufficiently recognize employees for outstanding performance, even though a 2018 study identified that 44% of respondents that planned to leave their job identified a lack of recognition as a reason. With the workplace shifts caused by the pandemic, it’s become even more critical to recognize employees for their contributions.

What’s worked well for me and my team is our dedication to celebrating our team’s work daily. Employees are encouraged to recognize the contributions of their peers in a company-wide Slack channel. We make a point to call out significant accomplishments and work anniversaries in weekly All-Hands meetings, and managers provide positive recognition as a core part of their role.

Just as positive recognition is an essential reward, we see constructive 1-on-1 feedback from managers as a reward as well. Clear and early feedback helps employees feel good about their positive contributions and equips them with knowledge and support for their career development.

Some of our most senior employees at OneSignal started in junior roles and have been with us from when we were just a dozen employees to now over 100. Looking back at our path, it’s clear that creating a collaborative environment that includes recognition, meaningful employee ownership in the business through stock options and a variety of opportunities for professional development are the key to recruiting and retaining talent in an increasingly competitive environment.

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We are collaborating too much.

That’s what Rob Cross has realized after studying high (and low) performers at effective organizations for more than 20 years. “We’re too eager to jump into, or be dragged into, active collaborations that might run better without us and that burn up our valuable time and energy,” he writes in his new book Beyond Collaboration Overload. And collaboration overload isn’t just about the meetings that fill up our calendars — it’s also the endless emails, Slacks, reports and work that every new project generates.

To reduce the overload, one essential step to take is to recognize the desires, needs, feelings and expectations that lead us to taking on too much. Here, Cross looks at the most common and how we can counter them.

My research shows we create roughly 50 percent of the collaboration overload problem in the form of the beliefs we hold. By “beliefs,” I mean the deeply held — and often unexamined — desires, needs, feelings, expectations and fears centered on how we assume we need to show up for others each day. Other terms I use are “motivators” and “triggers,” because these feelings motivate or trigger a tendency to jump into collaborations or help others, when doing so is often not in our best interests or most beneficial to our organization.

The actual list of beliefs, motivators and triggers that put people into collaboration overload is nearly infinite, but here are nine of the most common. You’re certain to have experienced some of these, and my hope is that you can apply the solutions the interviewees provided.

If you jump in too quickly or too often, you can become a target for ever-expanding requests that bog you down and prevent you from meeting your bigger goals.

Trigger #1:  The desire to help others

People find this trigger surprising because helping others is a core tenet of one of the most well-established approaches to management. But what’s supposed to be a positive can actually turn into a negative. Scott, one leader I met, was always trying to help people, from his direct reports to his bosses. Yet his contributions to discussions and decisions just made additional work for himself and others.

What you can do: If you jump in too quickly or too often, you can become a target for ever-expanding requests that bog you down and prevent you from meeting your bigger goals. Develop an awareness of why people beat a path to your door. Is it because you represent the route of least resistance? If so, learn to be comfortable saying no. Remember: It helps others become self-reliant. Shift your perspective from deriving satisfaction from helping to teaching people how to solve their problems.

Trigger #2: The sense of fulfillment from accomplishment

Yes, small wins feel good, and they reinforce who we are and provide a shot of dopamine. But these two motivators — the desire to help and the satisfaction from accomplishment — set up expectations in ourselves and others that can get out of control. When we continually intervene, we expect those we’re helping to respond, which adds to their workload. They, in turn, come to rely excessively on our help, which adds to our workload and keeps us from focusing our energy on the challenging work where we add the greatest and most distinctive value. This becomes an endless cycle of escalating collaboration.

What you can do: Practice avoiding activities that give you the rush of accomplishment for accomplishment’s sake by extracting yourself or giving partial direction while building others’ capabilities. If you must engage in a small task, remind yourself that good enough really is good enough.

The most efficient collaborators don’t try to get their sense of purpose and worth from demonstrating their accomplishments or status. Instead, they get it from developing others.

Trigger #3: The desire to be influential or recognized for expertise

In a quest for status, many of us assume our role is to constantly jump into discussions and offer our expertise. Others come to expect this, so they slow down to wait for our intervention. We end up driving work back to ourselves as requests pile up.

But I’ve found that the most efficient collaborators don’t try to get their sense of purpose and worth from demonstrating their accomplishments or trying to gain status. Instead, they get it from developing others and positioning them to become valued for their own capabilities.

What you can do: Don’t look for status in the expertise and knowledge that defined you yesterday. Let go of those old, familiar ways of interacting so you can create the space to develop in new ways as a leader who enables the team to take ownership and engage independently.

Trigger #4: Concern about being labeled a poor performer or colleague

Driven by this trigger, we say yes early and often, so everyone knows how competent and responsive we are. When we get requests from bosses or others, most of us don’t want to hesitate or be seen as complaining.

What you can do: You may be concerned that saying no could impact you later, but there’s a limit to what you can handle.

So instead of “yes” or “no”, offer choices, such as “What order would you like me to get these done in?” Create transparency into your capability and capacity and the volume of demands you are facing. Then ask the person to discuss their true needs and see if there is a different way to accomplish the request.

The need to be right has a way of generating excess meetings and emails that consume many people’s time.

Trigger #5: The need to be right

The need to be on top of all of the details leads to a number of unproductive activities. It pushes us to spend hours preparing for meetings and digging into reports and figures or  writing perfect, bulletproof emails.

Not only is this often unnecessary, it also blocks others’ engagement and doesn’t allow space for others’ input. The need to be right also has a way of generating excess meetings and emails that consume many people’s time.

What you can do: Admit that you don’t know the exact answer but you’re able and willing to quickly find out. Establish this early on, at the beginning of a project or when you join a new group.

By being authentic about your limits and having the courage to ask questions, you not only reduce your unproductive activities, but also create space for others to be honest and admit they don’t have the answers either. All this increases others’ trust in you.

Trigger #6: Fear of losing control of a project

This trigger is often tied into people’s belief that they are the most capable of doing the work well. And if you’re reluctant to delegate or connect, you sentence yourself to a life of trying to do everything yourself, which is impossible.

Moreover, control-oriented people never seem to have enough information, a clear-enough process or a perfect-enough plan. They ask for more data, build more-thorough processes or craft a better strategy, and their demands consume others’ time and they create churn and gridlock.

What you can do: Draw a line between high-risk tasks that do require you to hold on to the work and the lower-risk work that you can delegate without concern. Letting go will help you build capability in others and free up your own time to engage in work where you add the greatest value. Celebrate others’ solutions and resist the temptation to point out how you would have done it differently.

The most efficient collaborators have an expansive tolerance for ambiguity. Rather than focusing on being right, they focus on moving in the right general direction.

Trigger #7: Need for closure

This need can keep you on the phone or the computer late at night tying up loose ends in your email or trying to get that last little task accomplished when you no longer have the creativity or energy for it. Often these closure-driven efforts come out half-cooked, forcing others into additional work.

What you can do: Remind yourself that closure — or an empty email inbox — should not be your sole priority. Let nonpriority work or requests wait or slide off your radar altogether.

Do you attend every meeting on your calendar? The reality is, They’re not equally important. Skip those where your input isn’t needed and see if people notice.

Trigger #8: Discomfort with ambiguity

This trigger often comes up in the course of a project when there are unexpected developments. The ambiguity-averse argue that uncertainty can create chaos; it’s better to do the research and have the discussions well ahead of time so all the details are pinned down.

But pinning things down can lead to significant overload, not only for the manager but for the employees who run around looking for hard facts in the fog of uncertainty and much of this effort ultimately goes to waste. The future rarely unfolds the way we think it will, and the result is disengagement of the people who have wasted their time.

What you can do: The most efficient collaborators have an expansive tolerance for ambiguity. They focus on being directionally correct, making sure they are moving in the right general direction on the project. They remain open to adapting their ideas and plans as new information comes in.

Push yourself to make a decision in the face of ambiguity. Look to produce a solution in 20 minutes that helps move a plan ahead, rather than spending three hours and consuming others’ time to get to a more accurate solution or employ a more thorough process.

Trigger #9: FOMO (Fear of missing out)

The fear of missing out on better projects, better colleagues and better opportunities can become a persistent, nagging problem that won’t let you rest or stay in the moment. You feel vulnerable if you miss an opportunity to learn a new skill, or you may wonder: “Am I falling behind my peers?”

Too often, FOMO drives unproductive choices. So, we end up in projects that overburden us with collaboration and that aren’t well aligned with who we want to be or what we want to do with our lives.

What you can do: Before jumping into a new project, make sure that your plans aren’t driven by an emotional, knee-jerk reaction based on fear or social comparison. Bring people with a broader scope of responsibilities into your network. Tap these people to develop a counternarrative that might help you avoid making a decision based on FOMO rather than doing what is truly best for you.

Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Adapted from the new book Beyond Collaboration Overload: How to Work Smarter, Get Ahead, and Restore Your Well-Being by Rob Cross. Copyright 2021 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

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For the past couple years, companies have scrambled to understand why they were losing so many employees. Could the pandemic have chased millions out of the corporate ranks and into consulting or freelancing gigs? Did some people simply retire early or live off government stimulus money?

It looks as if the biggest answer may be the most straightforward one. While there’s no official survey of the tens of millions of people quitting jobs in the last couple years, experts are increasingly convinced that the overwhelming majority did not give up their employment status, or if they did it wasn’t for very long. They most likely took a role somewhere else that either paid them more immediately or offered a better opportunity of advancement. What is called the Great Resignation could also be known as the “Great Reshuffle.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2021, new hires totaled 75.3 million and separations (including those who quit, were laid off or left for other reasons) totaled 68.9 million. That equates to a net employment gain of 6.4 million. The industries that saw the largest increase in openings included accommodation and food services; manufacturing; and state and local education. The industries that saw the largest decrease in openings, according the BLS, included in finance, insurance and wholesale trade.

To be sure, some people have quit to go solo. U.S Census Bureau figures show that Americans filed a total of more than 5.4 million applications to start new businesses in 2021, surpassing the record set in 2020 of 4.4 million. In some cases, people made that switch because they didn’t want to return to working in an office full time. But that doesn’t explain away much of the quitting, experts say, because surveys show only a minority of U.S. companies have brought back the majority of employees to offices full time.

Millions of front-line workers and professionals are jumping between employers as they chase significant salary increases, signing bonuses, and offers of career development. We’ve even seen people newly hired just a few months ago who are now turning around and quitting for even better opportunities.

There are many reasons people are choosing to reshuffle, in addition to financial and material stability. These include happiness and satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships.

All this reshuffling potentially spells trouble for leaders who are focusing only on filling open roles rather than reevaluating what will keep employees engaged and productive. At least while unemployment remains at or near historical lows, there’s not much stopping these employees from moving again. This means retention is one of the single biggest issues for CEOs and their organizations.

While the traditional response to keeping employees is to offer greater compensation, that’s not enough. CEOs must play a critical role in setting the tone for making their organizations a place where employees want to stay.

Key tactics include giving employees a clear picture of their career progression and offering them development opportunities and mentors who can help them along the way.

Another tactic is to not sever ties with employees who did choose to leave, for they may soon become “boomerang” employees who return to their former employer. Support their decision to get new experiences but let them know the door is open if they choose to return. The benefit of re-hiring alumni is that they know their way around your organization and you know what you are getting in terms of their strengths and areas of development opportunities.

Finally, keep in mind that certain departures may give an opportunity to build the workforce of tomorrow. Leaders can think about new skill sets and what—and who—is needed to help organizations transform. Take this as an opportunity to do thoughtful hiring and not get trapped in the “oh my gosh I need to fill seats.” It’s time to think of the teams needed to progress the business agenda, not just the person. Step back and think about culture fit, skill sets and diversity of thought that is needed to succeed.

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“I’ve never had such a hard time hanging on to good talent.”

That’s what a business leader bemoaned to me recently, and I’ve heard similar sentiments almost every day for the past two years.

We’re in the midst of one of the most tumultuous times on record for hiring and retaining workers. Citing the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) wrote recently that in 2021 alone, an average of 3.95 million Americans left their jobs — each month!

This is obviously bad news for employers considering the negative downstream impacts of lost labor on a business. Whenever a worker leaves their post, their previous team experiences an immediate lag in production as former peers have to stretch to cover newly abandoned responsibilities. Then there’s the financial cost of searching for a new team member and training them to perform ably.

Backfilling one job is tough enough. Worse, when it becomes a regular occurrence, it can seriously undercut the growth of a business.

I work with business leaders across the country, specifically in the supply chain realm, helping them bolster their retention efforts. With data gleaned from my company’s worker feedback platform, we’ve been able to quantitatively identify why employees decide to seek greener pastures. Some of the reasons are industry-specific, and some of them are universal. But whatever the particular reason is that a worker leaves their job, there is one helpful thing employers can do to slow (sometimes even halt) a painful employee exodus. It’s what I tell every single business leader I know to do, and it’s what has helped propel the business I lead to substantial and sustainable growth.

Problem 1: Poor Training

When we sift through our data, we sort worker feedback based on a few different factors, including sentiment (was it positive or negative feedback?) and topic (pay, communication, etc.). When looking at the most frequently mentioned topics in 2021, we found that nearly 50 percent of workers who mentioned “training” as a concern last year were no longer with their employer when the calendar flipped to 2022.

This finding confirmed something that we already felt to be true: that the early days of a worker’s experience with an employer are the most critical for building loyalty and trust. This attrition metric is also important because it provides an opportunity for companies to clearly see this gaping hole in their HR “leaky bucket.” There are few things that will create an environment for high turnover more than pushing new hires into positions where they are ill-equipped to meet the demands facing them. Chances are strong that their tenure will never satisfy expectations—yours or theirs.

Problem 2: Lack of Non-Work Down Time

Since most of our clients are in the supply chain space (specifically trucking where it costs upwards of $5,000 to hire a new driver), we internally classify this topic as “home time,” but what it can translate to in a universal sense is “non-work down time.” In business lingo, the closest cliché would be the proper management of a healthy “work/life balance.” No matter what phrase is used, it’s important. So important that our 2021 data revealed that more than 40 percent of workers who cited “home time” as a problematic topic left their job by year’s end.

People have to have the opportunity to find fulfillment in their lives outside of work. For the fortunate, work can be an environment that affords an immense source of contentment. However, most individuals need to have the chance to fully unplug from their professional demands to spend time with family, pursue hobbies, travel or just knock out life’s other to-do’s. Few things, from my vantage point, contribute to burnout more than the inability to regularly untether oneself from work.

Problem 3: Unsatisfactory Compensation

This, I’m sure, comes as no surprise to anyone reading this article: unsatisfactory compensation is a key contributor to turnover. According to our statistics from last year, 36 percent of workers who mentioned pay as a troublesome issue left by the start of the new year. My hunch is that as inflation continues to rise, this trend will only grow. But, I think it’s more than a matter of dollars and cents. It’s deeper.

Businesses pay their workers a set rate based on how much they value the work that a specific employee delivers. For company management, it’s cold math, yet for the employee it’s almost impossible for them to disassociate their place on a pay scale from their own humanity. And if their paycheck doesn’t show them they’re valued, chances are strong they’ll go somewhere else where the dollar amount is more in line with their sense of individual worth.

A Fix: Feedback Culture

There will never be a magic elixir that solves every factor leading to employee turnover since there are simply too many variables in that equation—and you’ll have to address each of them appropriately. Take heart, though, because there is one thing you can do to get ahead of all of your retention pain points: create and cultivate a proactive feedback culture.

By proactively and regularly seeking out employee feedback, you will be able to get a firm grasp (in real time) of their wants and needs, and be able to take appropriate actions to remedy those issues as a part of your culture and retention efforts. Exit interviews are autopsy reports. They’re simply too little too late, and they operate inherently from a reactive stance. The most successful businesses are the ones that take initiative and try to get ahead of problems. A feedback culture is an obvious indicator of a healthy company, and the list of benefits they deliver is lengthy.

Want proof? Here’s one perfect example.

After what USA Truck referred to as a “lost decade,” business rebounded after instituting a company culture shift that puts change management based on driver feedback at their operations forefront. USA Truck offered the feedback platform that my company built as an anonymous feedback channel starting in 2019 and has since improved driver retention rates by 50 percent. A happier, more stable driver roster has enhanced their financial standing, contributed to an overall better working environment and has enabled them to adopt a more future-facing hiring approach rather than constantly plugging labor holes.

Feedback Powers You Forward

It’s simple, if you want to show your employees that you value them, then ask them how they’re doing on a regular basis. And when they bring up topics of concern, engage them about those issues in an effort to find fixes. Waiting until a worker is unhappy enough to quit won’t cut it, and it also won’t keep you from spinning your wheels backfilling the same roles over and over.

A feedback culture will minimize turnover and give you the freedom to train your eyes on the horizon, and we all know it’s easier to move along when we’re able to actually see what’s ahead of us rather than constantly stopping to address a nagging problem nipping at our heels.

Feedback will power you forward. I promise.

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The below transcript is a literal translation of the podcast audio that has been machine generated by Rev.

Hi, everyone. I’m Alan Beaulieu from ITR Economics, and I’d like to talk to you about some things that are in the news. There’s certainly no lack of things in the news, and I’m going to not talk about Ukraine in case you’re wondering. We’ve been talking about that in our presentations and through our consulting clients, and I think we have blogs on the subject. So I want to talk to you about some other things. I want to talk to you about the consumer, interest rates, and gasoline.

Now, they go together really well. And if you talk to folks about the interest rate hike, and if you were to go online and start looking at articles, you’d find plenty to make you wonder, oh my gosh, this 25 basis point rise that the Federal Reserve Board just put through, man, that’s going to hurt. It’s not. It’s going to be uncomfortable for some people on the edges, but certainly not many, and it’s not going to be one of those things where, oh, your credit card debt, all of a sudden you can’t pay it. That’s not the case either.

It’s not going to be one of those things where it’s going to stop car sales or stop home sales. Home sales are already slowing down. In case you’re interested, the February number for single-family housing starts was a really good number, in that it was slightly milder than average, but it was up and it wasn’t off by much on the average rise. So the consumer is still buying homes and houses are still being built, and interest rates are not going to derail all that.

In addition to that, there’s some statistics behind that. When you look at the individual and the person on the street, we can afford this debt. It’s not something that is beyond the pale, something that we can’t handle. When you are looking at the household debt service payments as a percent of disposable personal income, and disposal personal income is your after tax income, okay? So when you look at what a household is paying, and you look at what they’re taking in after tax, 9.2% of our taking in home go to making these household debt payments, 9.2%. How is that compared to history? It’s incredibly low.

Before the COVID, it was low for five years. We were cruising at an average of 9.9 for five years, which was very low. The average since 1980 is 11.4%, and the last time there was something close to this low is in 1993. From 1993 to December 2007, right before the Great Recession, our percent of debt to disposable personal income and debt service payments to disposable personal income just rose, and rose, and rose. It was not a straight line. Obviously, nothing is, but every trough was ascending and every peak was too, until we capped out at 13.2%. Those differences don’t sound like a lot, I get that, but they’re enough.

The bottom line here is that we, the consumer, are cruising at a very low level of debt service payments compared to our income, which means that if the cost of our debt goes up a little bit, we’re still below 40-year levels. We’re still at a place where we can handle it. And as we look at that, it certainly is encouraging. When you look at retail sales for the latest month of available data, February, and you deflate it, now, all inflation is out of it, so there’s no messing around with the rate of inflation, it’s still 14.4% above year ago levels and rising in phase B. The 3/12 rate of change is at 7.7% and in phase C.

So what we’re looking at here is that retail sales are slowing in their rate of rise. And this has been going on for months. Now, it’s good that it’s going up. The February number was a good number, there were no problems there. What I want to call your attention to is the fact that it’s been slowing down for months. And as that 3/12 has been coming down for months and the rate of rise is slowly changing in terms of its velocity, I understand that was happening long before the 25 basis point increase by the Federal Reserve Board. The press is not likely to make that connection. I want to make sure that you do. We have leading indicators that were signaling months ago, that this was going to happen in terms of consumer spending. So don’t let this 25 basis point scare you. Don’t let it keep you from buying a home. As a matter of fact, go out and buy a home. Don’t think that the economy’s going to go into recession. It’s not going to.

Now the other thing that’s in the news that I want to make sure we address is gasoline prices. I want to get too, into one TrendsTalk. Gasoline prices are impacting everyone. Just the other day, my wife told me how much it costs to fill up her vehicle. And it’s more than she’s had to spend on that in a long time. Let’s put it in context. Okay? When we look at what we spend for gasoline as a percent of our annual median earnings in this country, it’s 3.3%. So you’re spending 3.3% of your annual earnings on gasoline if you’re a normal driver. If you’re driving 200 miles a day, obviously you’re spending more if you’re going out of pocket, not reimbursed. But if you’re doing about 13,000 miles a year and you’re getting a vehicle that’s somewhere in the mid 20 miles per gallon, you’re at 3.3%.

Now, if you look back to 2011, ’12, ’13, ’14, it was higher than that. When you look back to right before the Great Recession, it was much higher than that. So what’s happening here is that our incomes have been going up, which means that even though gasoline’s higher, and we don’t like it, it’s actually affordable. It was less than ’18, ’19 and ’20, ’20 especially because of COVID. But still, don’t let this panic you. Don’t make this into something that it’s not. And this is not going to be an economy crusher. This is not going to make it impossible for the consumer to keep the economy going. This is going to be a pain in the neck for a lot of people. And this is going to be very difficult for lower income people.

I’m not in any way trying to take that off the table or minimalize it. I’m looking at the macroeconomic environment. I want you to understand this is not going to push us into a recession. The economy will be slowing down. It is slowing down in segments already. We’ve been forecasting for over a year that it was going to be slowing down. We have leading indicators that have been telling us for a number of quarters that it’s going to be slowing down, nothing surprising about this.

And as the economy slows, and as inflationary pressures slow, when supply chain pressures ease, and the producer pricing start to come down, you may find that those forecasts about 250, 300 basis point rises by the Federal Reserve Board in the next two years, you may find that they’ll do it, but you may find that they’re going to look back and go, hey, we were entirely successful. It’s okay. They can think that. You and I know it was already happening. And you and I know that there’s going to be less reason for them to raise interest rates so dramatically as we go forward. Of course, they’re going to raise them again, but I would not be worried about too many significant heights this year. There may be a number of 25 basis point hikes and as they do so, think of this TrendsTalk, we’ll be fine.

Thank you for listening. I’m Alan Beaulieu. This is ITR Economics, and I look forward to seeing you on the next TrendsTalk.

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