There’s no doubt that we face challenging times in the workplace. Employee engagement levels are at record lows, and the levels for top performers and high-potential employees have fallen the furthest of any group. Although employed workers are grateful that they’ve been spared some of the harsher realities of the recession, companies shouldn’t misread the danger ahead. Surveys reveal that 60 percent of employees plan to leave their current employer within a year, and another 21 percent are actively preparing to leave. Regardless of the size or scope of your organization, you can’t avoid addressing these issues without seriously risking the health and sustainability of your business. Here are a few ideas to help you avoid the risks and successfully move forward.

Employee Retention

Taking action is the most important step in keeping workers motivated and onboard. A Saratoga Institute study found that lack of communication was the top reason why good people left their organizations, so it’s more important than ever to keep the lines of communication open between managers and staff. As a leader, the key is to strengthen and build trust with your team, and that happens when you’re available, when you listen, and when you are open and honest about what’s happening in the company.

Taking the time to share news and ideas with staff will do wonders in reducing any lingering anxiety they may have. Help the team understand why you’ve had to make some of the decisions that may have adversely affected them during the recession and your candor will go a long way in keeping them engaged.

Maximize these employee discussions by also seeking their ideas for generating new revenue or reducing costs — they’ll appreciate being asked and you may gain a new idea or two.

The Impact of Corporate Culture

Randstad’s Work Watch survey revealed that company culture is also a critical driver of business success. In fact, two-thirds of employees believe that company culture is very important to the success of their organizations, stating that it has the greatest impact on their morale and productivity. While improving company culture may be the secret weapon to retain workers and increase productivity and morale, it has been severely impacted in the last couple of years. With layoffs, reduced benefits and lowered wages, morale has suffered and many workers are feeling disengaged from their employers.

You need to focus on regaining employee productivity and igniting performance. Randstad has found that company culture is often an overlooked opportunity to jump start business improvements and should be treated as a critical component in your overall business strategy. Why is it so important? The Brookings Institute reports that as much as 85 percent of a company’s assets are now created by intangible resources such as human institutional knowledge and talent, so your employees have become a very significant asset that you’ll want to nurture and develop.

The keys to a better culture begin with benchmarking the current culture: how it is defined, what it means to employees, and what your organization would like it to be. The Randstad survey revealed that the top two factors critical to positive company cultures are employee attitudes and effective management.

Other important elements include:

• Strong trust relationships

• Customer focus

• High accountability standards

• Commitment to training and development

• Compensation and reward programs

• Support for innovation and new ideas

• Useful resources, technology and tools

• Emphasis on recruiting and retaining outstanding employees

Appreciation Changes Everything

A little appreciation, guidance and feedback from leaders goes a long way in keeping employees motivated and on the job, according to a survey conducted by Kelton Research. Just over half of workers said that aside from compensation and benefits, being appreciated would motivate them to stay in their current position, and 46 percent said they would rather be appreciated than have an opportunity to advance their career. Escalating workplace demands have created environments where employees don’t feel they are valued appropriately by superiors, and employers are overlooking simple solutions to improve employee morale and loyalty.

Companies seeking to avoid turnover need to close the communication gap and empower employees to perform well in their roles. Achieving that goal begins with getting the right people into the right jobs and helping them to succeed, yet the survey found that in the last six months:

• 68 percent complain that they haven’t received useful feedback from their supervisors.

• 82 percent have not established their career goals with their superiors.

• 53 percent haven’t felt they have a clear understanding of how their role contributes to the company’s objectives.

• 25 percent have been given new duties or responsibilities that are outside of their skill set.

Recognition is Always Essential

As a manager, the key to motivation turns out to be largely within your control because you have influence over events that facilitate or undermine progress. You can provide meaningful goals, resources and encouragement, and you can protect your staff from irrelevant demands. Or you can fail to do so by changing goals autocratically, being indecisive or holding up resources.

And don’t let up on your use of incentives or recognition. These cost-efficient motivational programs are excellent vehicles for delineating what’s important to the company, aligning the workforce behind corporate priorities, and increasing productivity while delivering a solid return on your investment. Research and case studies prove unequivocally that incentive and recognition programs improve the corporate bottom line and your brand reputation, and employees are far more productive and loyal when they are recognized.

While these programs are a very positive experience for employees, it’s the employer who gains the most in the increased revenues and cost-savings they can generate — including saving you from the costly exodus of your best employees. By recognizing workers who are achieving their goals publicly, you not only increase their individual engagement levels, but you reinforce desired workplace behaviors and morale for your entire team.

Every company benefits from the advantages of a more engaged workforce, and it only requires a modest investment of time and resources. A study by The Corporate Leadership Council provides a small sample of the compelling data on the business benefits of engaging your employees:

As we all struggle to shake off the remnants of the recession, we need to leverage motivation and communication tools to help us recover sooner rather than later and give us every possible competitive advantage in the marketplace. Companies who are short-sighted about engaging their workforce will likely continue to find they are disappointed with what they get from their workers, and may even find a good percentage of their best talent abandoning ship in the near future.