The toughest thing when you are growing your business is keeping your employees engaged. A growing business, in many ways, shouldn’t be their concern, but when an employee is putting their eggs in your basket, you have to embody the drive and determination to ensure they have invested their faith in something that actually will benefit them in the long run. However, there will be times when employees feel your business is a sinking ship, and they will jump!
Employees leave for a number of reasons, for example, lack of communication, micromanagement, not being treated equally, and most importantly, the workplace not feeling right to them. So what can you do to keep your employees from leaving?
Set Clear Goals and Objectives
If your business is growing, your goals may move around like a moving target, which is why you must communicate your expectations early on and clearly! So if you want results, they must relate to the goals. If you are spearheading a culture of collaboration within your business, and you feel that the culture needs to be in place before you start reaping the rewards, it’s critical that you set the objectives first, and you can do this based on a watertight business plan, but also address your core values.
Show Respect
If you want to establish a positive work environment, respect and appreciation are critical, but amazingly, many people still feel disrespected in the modern working environment. A survey conducted by Pew Research Center found that 57% of people who quit their jobs were due to a lack of respect in the workplace. If you want to keep people, you’ve got to give them the respect they deserve. Respect will create loyalty, improve engagement, and will boost motivation. But above all this, it means you are a genuine and human individual. Respect is a simple thing, but it’s amazing how many organizations lack it.
Look for Extra Input
If you make decisions without any other input, especially in a small organization, you may benefit from this simple strategy. Leaders make the mistake of thinking they have to be the smartest person in the room. The reality is that an organization is only as good as those who are propping it up. Being a leader is akin to a person playing chess, understanding what each piece does, and ensuring the play set out utilizes all of those individual components in the right manner. Your team will always have an abundance of ideas, but it’s about using the right forum to encourage ideas and input. This will increase collaboration, will give your organization more resources, and, most importantly, makes the employees feel like they are contributing to something much bigger than what their role demands.
Look to the Future
We tend to judge everybody based on what they have literally just done. This is a very ineffective approach to retaining employees. If somebody feels like they’re only as good as the work they did last week, and have been with you for a number of years, this is not going to fill them with faith. You need to be aware of what the future holds, and how employees can progress so they develop organically alongside the organization’s development. It may seem impossible to predict the future, but there are management techniques such as the PPP method that can help you get started. We do not want employees to leave, and if we make the mistake of not looking at the bigger picture, especially in terms of the recent past, this is sending a very stark message to employees that you are judging them based on their most recent achievements. If you only reward an employee based on what they have just done, rather than over a long stretch of time, don’t be surprised when they tell you they do not feel valued.
Train Them Up
Good training is important for a number of reasons. Most importantly, it ensures that your employees are going to feel respected, and as though you actually care for them and their prospects. Also, you will find that having well trained employees ensures that you can get more out of them, that they do their work properly and so on. Ideally you will provide the necessary tools and means for them to be trained up well, such as engaging with Workforce Education Programs as appropriate. That way, your employees will feel a lot more fulfilled by the role, and will be much less likely to quit.
Giving Feedback in the Right Ways
Feedback to employees is critical for their development, but if you continue to criticize with a negative angle, this will only serve to wear them down. People will recall negative feedback more than positive ones. You’ve got to motivate and lead by example, and this means accentuating the positives, rather than just telling them what they’ve done wrong. If somebody feels like they are doing wrong, even if 95% of their work is right, they’re not going to feel like they are worthwhile, and therefore they will go find somewhere else. Your employees leaving can arise from a number of reasons, if you want to stop them from leaving, some of these components will make all the difference.
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