How do you make the weather?

“I make the weather” is one of the simplest, most effective analogies in business to build and drive retention.

Shared by James Kerr, specialist in leadership and high-performance teams, it acknowledges the conditions for growth required to create a culture designed for retention and belonging.

Belonging sits at the heart of every retention strategy and that comes down to culture, to climate and to character.

The culture is the environment the individual works and exists in, the climate is the environment that is created; the environment they grow and flourish in and the character is the individuals in the room.

Retaining top talent in today’s workforce is not a one size fits all model. There is no blueprint, there is no white paper, there is no ‘here’s a five-step rule.’ Retaining top talent in today's workforce requires an approach that aligns with every single individual in the organisation, it’s about building leadership at every level; moving a dynamic from dependent thinking to independent practice.

 The most important foundation stone is the leadership team – they make the weather; they provide the climate for growth, development, belonging, retention. The leadership team can bring in the sunshine and warmth to help boost the conditions or frankly they can stifle and overshadow making every individual dream of a better climate, of sunnier shores, of a greener grass somewhere else.

The old school models of employee retention are about as relevant as a fax machine in today’s office environment. It’s time to stop looking at what used to work, it definitely is time to remove the rose-tinted glasses of ‘well back in my day’ and it really is time to start greeting today’s workforce in their model of the world.

And therein lies the secret sauce – we need to meet the workforce in their model of the world of the work – regardless of age, life stage, gender, race or belief system. It’s time to start seeing the world of work through a relevant lens. So the first part of the jigsaw puzzle of retention is not ‘faking it until you make it’ and is about embracing the analogy “I make the weather” and understanding how your impact impacts the people around you.

 There is a generation in the world of work that has a different definition of how to work. A generation that has worked through COVID (yes that is still impacting on how we work today) demand and want different things from the weather they work in. That doesn’t mean productivity, efficiency, creativity suffers; it doesn’t mean that there’s no passion and purpose in teams and individuals; it means there’s simply a different perspective. And understanding someone else’s perspective is the cornerstone of talent attraction, retention and development.

Today's workforce, particularly the Gen Z cohorts craves transparency and inclusivity; open dialogues, consistent communications is the required norm.

 Having the right conversations is the foundation of any retention strategy.

Listening to those conversations is the cornerstone.

And the right conversations, where individuals are heard creates connections that create impact in the workplace. And connections, character and the right conversations all build trust – and if climate is the foundation stone of a retention strategy, trust is the cornerstone.

 So how do you build trust? Consistency. Actually listening, actually hearing what your staff have to say and then having relevant, real and actionable actions off the back of it.

The Best Places to Work reports that the ‘best workplaces are in a constant process of asking, listening, learning and acting on what they have heard – not playing lip service to listening.’

It’s the actions that then count, implementing real change and giving it time through consistent communications and conversations is how you retain your talent. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it that matters – on a micro scale.

So instead of focusing on an outdated vision, mission and values, look at retention and L&D strategies that look at creating leaders at every level – at distributive leadership models, that invest in training the individual to see huge increases in year on year retention.

Looking at the ethos of the SAS, the Red Arrows and organisations where teamwork and performance is at the heart of survival; they build strategies of ‘leadership at every level’ with a ‘think big, act small’ plan. They look at how they socialise information, how they listen to every individual in the team and how they action the tactical information from the front to the back, across every level – as the climate for growth can differ depending on the level.

Today’s talent retention comes down to the behaviours and tone set by the leaders of the business and the behaviours that are cascaded through the business. Behaviours are contagious, behaviours are mirrored. The performance delivered by the individuals in the team can be measured by talent, the capability and, critically, the behaviour.

Behaviours take potential to peak consistency – and consistency breeds the climate for growth. Shared behaviours done right become a shared purpose, emulate shared goals and are way more critical to talent retention than some tickbox shiny values are painted on the wall.

If organisations get the conditions right, the performance and the retention will take care of itself. When an organisation invests in training, in leadership at every level, in developing positive behaviour patterns, routines, habits it creates consistency; it creates space for every individual to grow and create their own climates for growth.

And to continue the analogy; when we create a secure climate for growth, when roots are laid down, nurtured and fed; it makes it very hard for it to be uprooted and moved anywhere else.

So the first question to ask in developing any retention strategy is “how do you make the weather?”