Or, all the ways that employee recognition could return to Oracle. Oracle must change to see employees as essential resources that build the company, who can be invested in, upskilled and retained to grow employee productivity, contribution and satisfaction.
Intro
A business can think of its “human capital”, or it can see people who help deliver its mission. The way that your company describes its workforce, and the approach that management takes in building opportunity, providing growth, and celebrating employees is reflected in the culture and success of its teams and for the company as a whole.
Notably, Oracle shows zero loyalty to employees. Trust is a reciprocal belief, and Oracle is not a trustworthy partner to its workforce. There is a profound lack of transparency, a history of suppressing open communication, and a failure to recognize and celebrate achievement. Ultimately, Oracle is a company that sees its employees as skilled labor assets only (drop assets here, purchase new assets in this lower cost-center or with these skillsets).
Hiring Practices
Employee development and retention starts by hiring with the intention of building a culture and identifying talent. Skills can be trained, but aptitude and fit as well as onboarding practices matter greatly to the overall success and retention of a new hire.
- Hire for potential, hire for aptitude
- Experience timely hiring practices by funding and committing to requisitions, and fulfilling those positions in timeframes that don’t exceed 30 days from the closure of the application period.
- Ensure that onboarding programs take place for all new employees
- Create mentorships or buddy programs for newhires
- Make time to introduce newhires to their teams and partner organizations
Recognize the Person over the Employee
- Practice Work/Life Balance
- Encourage Time Off
- Allocate discretionary budgets to managers so that teams can respond to life events for their peers (bereavement, retirement) and consider life awards (graduation, birth, moves, etc.)
Recognize Teams
Teams can be functional teams (all reporting to one manager), cross-functional teams, project teams, and even cross-business unit teams. A team can be three people, or forty people. Teams can be informal or formal. The ability to form, collaborate, and storm through to performing well should be recognized as a keystone of employee productivity.
Practice Curiosity, Practice Thanks
Recognize that a significant part of any person’s daily life is spent at work. Take time to get to know people on your team, and learning and respecting them as a whole person. Meetings can include a short period of open discussion that can include introductions, “catching up”, and recognition or work. Meetings can close with a question “What do you need?”
Build time for recognition. Take time to provide personal notes for fellow employees. A small note, or a quick email to recognize another employee is often appreciated, and more-so over time when consistently practiced within the team. If you have an employee recognition system that allows peers to submit recognition for an employee, that becomes a valuable tool to understand contributions, honor work, and build a practice of thanks.
Build Growth with Goals
Employees (all employees) should include growth and personal achievement goals in their annual objectives. These goals can be:
- Training and certification (and an allocated budget for training and travel),
- Departmental cross-training,
- Unique leadership opportunities within the team or company,
- Participating in an employee mentorship program,
- Time granted to lead Employee Resource Group (ERG) activities,
- Commitment to lead or participate in volunteer projects, or
- Plans and a path to apply for a promotion in the upcoming year
- Recognition and growth through speakerships, whitepapers, and research
Commitment to Accountability, Not Clocks
Good management will understand that accountability is more important than hours in the office. A good employee recognizes that timely delivery of work is crucial, but will appreciate flexibility of daily schedules.
Good Tools = More Productivity
Company practices should include inspection of their internal tools, with an eye towards process improvements around collaboration, discovery and production. This is often overlooked, but an incredibly important part of overall employee satisfaction.
Systems should be:
- Intuitive,
- Accessible,
- Integrated,
- Perform well, and
- Have good systems of support
Commit to Focal Cycle and Bonuses
Organizations that fail to reward employees for positive quarters are failing to recognize its most important asset – its workforce.
- Allocate sufficient funds and RSUs to the focal cycle, and for annual bonuses – if a quarterly profit is expected, there should be money on the table for employees. Prioritize employees over managers, and managers over executives.
- Grant management enough time to properly conduct reviews, with consideration of the number of direct reports each manager is responsible for.
Measure Promotion, Celebrate Retention
A good company is recognized by employee loyalty. If your company is monitoring acceptable attrition rates, that’s a sign that they don’t care about the people. Instead look at rates of internal promotion, discover groups that regularly promote up; and monitor retention rates.
- Attach meaningful awards to work anniversaries (i.e. time off, or contribution to a savings plan).
- Determine tenures that can be granted eligibility for work hiatus or “special projects” as planned for.
Commit to Managing Organizational Change
One of the biggest failings of management is in how it plans and communicates organizational change.
- Limit change to minimize disruption – reorganizing a business unit or changing priorities has a cascading effect for teams, projects and products. Minimize the churn by establishing good, long term missions, values, and objectives that can be reliably planned for. Leaders should represent the mission and culture of the organization, rather than leading by a cult of personality
- Communicate early so that organizations can plan and organize for changes in roles and responsibilities, directories and permissions, projects and backlogs, content management, to manage support workloads, and especially for critical feedback.
- Transparency matters – honest discussion about the reasons for change require that management has committed to a path, and can communicate why a change was required and what it will impact.
- Retrain to retain – instead of losing valuable organizational knowledge, find ways to repurpose existing employees rather than fire and hire