The document discusses strategies for leaders to engage, motivate, and retain talent in the post-global financial crisis landscape. It highlights the experiences and challenges faced by employers, including increased workloads and high turnover rates, and emphasizes the importance of employee engagement and discretionary effort in enhancing performance. Recommendations are provided for establishing high-performing teams and developing leadership qualities that foster a supportive work environment.

1. The Post GFC Leader
Identifying and equipping leaders to engage, motivate and
retain talent in the post GFC landscape
Aaron McEwan
Director, Hudson Talent Management
Dr Ben Palmer
CEO, Genos International

2. Hudson 20:20 Series Whitepaper
“Positioning for Growth – Building a Dynamic Workforce in a
New Economic Era”
Assessed the fallout of the downturn in Australia and New
Zealand’s businesses and workforces, with specific focus on
today’s increasing labour market liquidity
Surveyed: 574 Employers
1633 Employees
Provided recommendations on how to find and retain high
performing employees in an increasingly competitive, skills-
short market

3. The GFC: What did employers experience?
37% implemented pay freezes for some/all
staff
50% roles were merged or made redundant
43% workloads increased
11% of overall workforce lost
59% say they are now under-resourced
32% market has become more competitive

4. The GFC: What did employers experience?
50% roles were merged or made redundant
More than 3500 candidates completed
Hudson outplacement programs – mostly
middle managers
Many outplacement candidates changed
careers/industries – not coming back
Retirement plans shelved due to impact on
super – ageing workforce issues postponed

5. Business As Usual?
“WE’RE NOW PLANNING
FOR A PERIOD OF
GROWTH, THERE’S AN
OPTIMISTIC AIR IN THE
COMPANY THAT WE’VE
MISSED”
CMO, Sales, Marketing &
Communications

6. The New Workload Regime
62% of employees
believe they are
working harder as a
result of changes
made during the
GFC

7. Employee Loyalty and Motivation Post GFC
“THE DOWNTURN HAS
MADE A BAD
IMPRESSION ON MY
EMPLOYEES AND WE
KNOW NOW THAT
WE’RE BEING HELD TO
THAT IMPRESSION”
HR Manager, Office Support

8. Talent Exodus Arrives
Around 61% of
employees plan
to be in a new
job within the next
six months

9. Reasons For Change

10. Skills Shortage Returns

11. Employers Now Focussed On Getting The Right Team
43% do not have the right team in place
84% made too many redundancies
23% of losses were high performers
34% says teams are now weaker
83% are focussed on building the right
team for growth

12. What is a High Performer?
High performers are engaged, they’re inspired and
they expend discretionary effort

13. Employee Engagement and Discretionary Effort
Only 11% of a typical workforce is highly engaged
Engaged employees can yield up to 57% more discretionary effort
This discretionary effort can improve performance by 20%
73% of engagement is explained by actions or behaviours exhibited by leaders
High Engagement Low Engagement
Financial Metric
Companies Companies
(12 month change)
(%) (%)
Operating Income + 19.2 - 32.7
Net Income Growth + 13.7 - 3.8
Earnings Per Share + 27.8 - 11.2
Towers Global Workforce Study (2008)

14. Retention – Keeping high performers engaged
Drivers Environment
• Right People in the Right Jobs • Aligned Effort and Strategy
• Leadership Excellence • Empowerment
• Organisational Strategies and • Collaboration
Systems
• Growth and Development
• Support and Recognition
Employees are four times more likely to leave a job with
a Manager that has poor Coaching and Interpersonal
Skills
(Cherniss & Goleman, 2001)

15. The Post GFC Leader has to function in an environment where…
There is very little certainty - world economy is unstable
There is opportunity for growth and market share gain
Business is highly complex with multiple, global and diverse interactions
and interconnections
GFC downsizing cut deeply into ‘muscle’
Turnover and workforce fluidity are high
Competition for high performers and ‘talent’ is fast approaching pre-GFC
levels
Employee engagement and loyalty is declining yet critical to success

16. What Makes an Engaging Leader? – Understated Authenticity
Intellectual Agility - Navigates complexity, integrates complex
information
Resilience - Copes with ambiguity and continuous change, stress resistant
Self Awareness - Seeks feedback to improve interactions with others,
accurately describes how others view his or her capabilities
Relational Transparency - Says exactly what he or she means, is
willing to admit mistakes when they are made
Balanced Processing - Solicits views that challenge his or her deeply
held positions, listens carefully to different points of view before coming to
conclusions
Internalised Moral Perspective - Demonstrates beliefs that are
consistent with actions, makes decisions based on his/her core beliefs
Source: Prof Paul Evans Journal of Human Resource Management (2003)

17. What Drives Leadership Performance?

18. The traditional method
Employee engagement
Perform
Praise Perfect
Universal drivers of Executive Leadership
Communication
motivation Leadership
Decision Making
Role-Clarity Career Opportunities
Working Conditions Interdepartmental Cooperation
Performance Management Resources
Strategy Mission/Vision/Values
Reward & Recognition Change Management
Learning & Development

19. Employee engagement
Praise Perfect
time
Perform
The traditional method
Universal drivers of
motivation

20. What about individual drivers of motivation?
Employee engagement Employee engagement
Perform Perform
Praise Perfect Praise Perfect
Universal drivers of
motivation
+ Individual drivers of
motivation

21. Individual motivational drivers

22. Motivational fit and engagement
Amount of variance in engagement explained
100%
80%
60%
53%
45%
40%
27%
21%
20%
0%
Manager Team Organisation Role

23. What happens when you achieve it?

24. New methods
Individualising employee engagement
Develop managers emotional intelligence
Facilitate individual motivational fit engagement reviews and
monitor the impact

25. Individualise employee engagement
Employee engagement
Perform
Praise Perfect
Individual drivers of
motivation
= Shared
ownership

26. New methods - develop manager’s emotional intelligence
r = .48
r = .45
r = .56
r = .58
r = .52
r = .48
r = .53

27. Engaged
Nearly
Engaged
Not
Engaged
Disengaged

28. Facilitating individual engagement – five step process
1. Purpose & Outcomes
2. Present your own analysis
3. Individual motivational fit activity
4. SMART Goal action planning
5. Monitor

29. Summary
1. Individualising employee engagement
2. Develop managers emotional intelligence
3. Facilitate individual motivational fit engagement reviews
and monitor the impact