Humanity in Hyper-Growth

This post is written by Shannon Hughes, Facilitator and Culture Partner | Helping CEOs and team leaders build and nurture people-first company culture. Shannon is a Faculty Member for CVNL’s Excellence in Leadership and Management Essentials series.

The more I chat with Founders and People Ops leads, the clearer the tie between humanity at work and purpose-aligned retention.

Did you know…

• the average cost of losing an employee is 33% their annual salary?
• 20% of turnover happens within the first 45 days of employment due to unsatisfactory culture?
• employee retention rates increase by 30-50% on average for companies with strong learning culture? (source: Go1 blog post, September 2021)

Do those stats blow you away like they do me? 🤯 I mean, it doesn’t get more real than the numbers, does it?

And did you also know…

• 87% of HR managers say that employee retention is their number one priority. But over 20% of these managers say that focusing on retention is difficult because other non-people related tasks demand their attention and budget.

I’m sorry, what?!

Okay, here’s my proclamation, people:

Hyper-growth does not need to override well-designed people development programs. In other words, product viability AND compassionate leadership are not mutually exclusive.

We can have it both ways.

The formula for upping your ‘people’ game is pretty straightforward. So often though, garnering commitment and budget is not.

Is this you? Stuck in a mindset that people come AFTER product?

If so, aren’t you just a little curious what the fallout is going to be from a retention perspective? What employee satisfaction and wellness might look like close up?

Companies are made of people. People are human – with worldviews and personal value systems, stories and heart.

Don’t get so big so fast that you lose sight of that. Your business depends on it.

Let’s get back to humanizing business, shall we?