Most companies nowadays innovate to improve employee retention. Salary is a tool to retain employees for a short period. But role clarity in the workforce significantly affects employees to stay longer.
Role clarity pertains to employees’ understanding of their work and responsibilities. Moreover, companies that inculcate their mission in their workplaces are more likely to be valued by their employees. This means when employees understand the main goal of their company, they will most likely to thrive.
According to Pijnacker (2019), 50% of the employees across different sectors lack role clarity. Interestingly, a study conducted by Human Resource Analytics, people who have role clarity obtain an effectivity level of 86%, employee retention level of 84%, the productivity level of 83%, and satisfaction with leadership of 75%.
“Employees who experience role clarity are 53% more efficient and 27% more effective at work than employees who have role ambiguity. Our research shows that overall work performance increases by 25%,” Pijnacker emphasized.
Why the Lack of Role Clarity Reduces Employee Retention?
It is important to understand that the lack of purpose decreases motivation and cooperation. Companies should realize that it will be more costly for them if employees do not understand their jobs and do not appreciate their career growth. Employees who lack clarity about their job waste time and energy doing the trivial many without giving any impact.
As cited in the book of Greg Mckeown, the Essentialism, there are two common patterns, two common patterns emerge when teams lack purpose:
1. Playing Politics
Teams are overwhelmed winning the attention of the top management.
“When people do not know what the end game is, they are unclear about how to win, and as a result, they make up their own game and their own rules as they vie for the manager’s favor,” Greg highlighted.
Instead of optimizing their skills to make highest contribution to the company, they end up looking better than anyone else in the company, which is not an essential thing in improving one’s productivity. Too much politics in the company deteriorates employee retention.
2. It’s All Good
Teams without goals become leaderless.
“With no clear direction, people pursue the things that advance their short-term interests, with little awareness of how their activities contribute to (or in some cases, derail) the long-term mission of the team as a whole,” Greg stated.
Teams who have members that pursue personal interests rather than making the highest contribution for their team can significantly affect the teams’ productivity. As a result, employees who were left behind and find that their purpose in the team remains unclear will most likely walkout from the company.
Clarity is Important in the Workforce
Clarity within the workforce does not only improves employee retention but it also makes the company have better outcomes. When employees have a clear understanding of their purpose in the company, they will have better communication and collaboration with one another resulting in proactive teams within the company. Thus, the company will be beneficial in the long-run for having an efficient and effective workforce.
On the other hand, according to Craig Shimasaki, companies that have ambiguity about their missions, goals, and core values will more likely to affect their structure. This is significantly attributed by employees and even executives suffering from decision fatigue, deteriorating the quality of decision making. Keep in mind that the sustainable success of the company lies in the balance of the employees’ clear understanding of the business objectives of the company and the role they play in contributing to achieve company’s goals.
