If you're suffering from poor employee retention, you've likely pondered what you can do to prevent workers leaving. Here are three things to avoid.
Yet another resignation letter has landed on your desk. This time, it's from one of your best staff. One thought reprises in the front of your mind - was there anything you could have done to prevent employees from leaving?
Going through the recruitment process again and again is tedious, time-consuming, costly and often very risky. There is the time and money, but there is also the negative impact this has on staff morale and productivity, to name only a few of the consequences that may arise.
Instead of taking a reactive approach by constantly replacing personnel, we've put together three things you can avoid to better prevent your critical workers from walking out your door. More often than not, it comes down to taking a proactive approach to ensure your workers feel adequately appreciated.
"Promises are the strands that weave together coordinated activity in organisations." - Sull and Spinosa
1. You don't live up to your word
In every relationship in business, whether it is with a supplier a customer or a subordinate, trust should take centre stage.
Take, for example, an article from Harvard Business Review. The writers Donald Sull and Charles Spinosa explore the importance of upholding your word when interacting with all organisational stakeholders, but particularly your workers. They describe promises as the lifeblood of business and the essence of organisational structure. From following through with the payrise you promised if team members hit their targets this quarter to arranging alternative hours for the new mum on your team, disregarding your commitments is a massive sign of disrespect and cause of disconnect in your team. What's more, if you aren't keeping your word, then why should your followers?
2. You fail to recognise good work
As a way to reinforce the good work that people do, recognising exemplary contributions is important. However, to ensure that it doesn't backfire on you, your tactics needs to be honest and personalised. Not every employee will be over the moon when their face is framed as the employee of the month and not every worker is going to be satisfied with just a pat on the back. In fact, every single person has different preferences as to the type of rewards they prefer and the way they want to be recognised.
As a manager, it is your job to understand what makes each employee tick. You must use this knowledge to provide the right level of recognition and incentivisation to ensure that nobody feels under-appreciated or undermined. It becomes an balancing act of reinforcing the great work your top performers do and giving the squeaky wheels some oil to incentivise them to try harder. Getting this right can make a world of difference to your team's engagement and productivity levels and, most importantly, their desire to stick around.
Almost two-thirds of workers who are not happy at their job don't feel valued.
3. Your employees don't feel you care about them
The employee-manager relationship is mission critical to an organisation's success. If there are issues here, chances are, workers won't be sticking around long. In fact, a recent survey from CareerBuilder found that three out of five workers who are dissatisfied with their job are looking elsewhere. Despite two-thirds being concerned about their remuneration, a startling 65 per cent were not happy at their job because they didn't feel valued.
Proving to your employees that you really care about them comes down to being both a buddy and a boss. People like respect and cordiality but often need authority and direction at the same time. Living up to your word and recognising the good work that others do are two ways to make people feel personally respected and professionally valued. For more information about designing and implementing a framework that ensures you hold on to key staff, get in contact with the rewards and recognition experts at Power2Motivate today.
