Welcome to the October Edition of Leadership Matters.
This month’s thought leadership covers a diverse range of relevant topics for IML ANZ Members. This includes Sustainability tips for business leaders written by Andy McLean MIML, Personal strategies to help overcome blind spots in your leadership by our well-respected career doctor Peter Cullen FIML, and an interview with passionate oarsman, Chris Hudgell FIML, who shares his insights on the benefit of rowing for recharging his batteries and what it has taught him about leadership.
From my perspective, one of the most interesting topics explored in this month’s edition is how managers and leaders can retain staff in a post-COVID/lockdown work environment. These last 18 months have been difficult for all of us, both personally and professionally, and as Australia and New Zealand opens back up and learns to ‘live’ with COVID-19 in the community, there’s evidence that a greater number of staff will look externally to seek new challenges.
This was well researched in a recent publication by McKinsey Quarterly, that showed a record number of employees (up to 40%) were thinking about new jobs. It demonstrated that by not understanding what employees are running from, or indeed what they might gravitate to, managers and leaders were putting their very businesses at risk.
IML ANZ has recently launched two research reports relevant to this debate. The annual Staff Retention Report was released to our National Salary Survey subscribers in October, showing that the ‘great resignation’ is a clear and present danger for organisations as the average staff turnover was on the increase. In addition, IML ANZ launched a Talent Acquisition Guide detailing several strategies managers and leaders could adopt to start turning staff attrition into attraction.
IML ANZ Professional Member Chris Huet AFIML has written an informative article in this edition discussing these challenges, as he seeks answers on ‘How can leaders meet the great leadership challenge this century’.
I hope you enjoy this month’s edition of Leadership Matters.
Yours Sincerely,
Marie-Louise Pearson OAM FIML Life Member