Guest Post“That’s the third employee to put in their two-week notice in the last couple of weeks. What are we doing wrong? Is there something we can do to keep our workers from quitting?”
The first thing you should ask yourself if this is happening at your workplace is this: “Do my employees feel respected and valued?” Employees often leave even high paying jobs because they don’t feel that management cares about them, their ideas are being ignored, and their careers aren’t going anywhere.
Here are six things you can do to help your employees overcome these negative feelings and know they are respected and valued.
1. Have actual conversations
With the conveniences of the digital age, so much communication takes place via emails, texts, and voicemails that employers don’t get to know their employees, and employees don’t get to actually communicate with their employers. This is a huge problem in many workplaces. When possible, have everyday conversations with your employees so they know you “see” them and that they aren’t as invisible as they may sometimes feel.
2. Share information
Undervalued employees complain that they are always out of the loop; they don’t really feel like team players anymore. They wish their employers would share more information with them, hold meetings where they are included, and take the time to listen to their concerns. Collaboration gives employees a chance to feel like their ideas and contributions matter. When collaboration is common in the workplace, keeping employees becomes a little easier.
3. Listen to concerns and be ready to act
Many employees feel like they aren’t really being heard. When employees feel ignored, their job satisfaction and performance goes down. To show you are truly listening, set up suggestion boxes where workers can share immediate concerns or problems they see going on in the workplace. There should be a regular cut-off date for when the suggestions need to be shared (weekly, biweekly, monthly, etc.), and problems should be addressed immediately to show employees their bosses are listening.
4. Give opportunities to review leadership and be willing to improve
You can also step up and prove you really care through holding biannual performance reviews where not only the employee is reviewed, but where you are reviewed as well. As a caveat, with these bi-directional meetings, you need to be willing to act on suggestions as to how you can better lead, just as employees must step up and make their own changes in order to succeed.
5. Offer rewards and recognition
Employees feel respected and valued when you offer an employee reward and recognition system for contributions and achievements. Rewards include monetary incentives such as bonuses and tuition benefits that motivate workers to reach further and work harder than they normally would; and non-monetary incentives such as advanced training or more flexible work schedules to encourage excellence.
When employees are recognized for their accomplishments and rewarded for their value to a company, productivity and morale increases. It’s a win-win situation for both you and employers. Recognition can be as simple as offering a thank you for their contributions to a project or presenting an award to them for overall productivity. The important thing is to show respect and help employees feel valued. Keeping employees who feel valued and respected is much easier than keeping employees when they feel unimportant and unnoticed.
6. Offer opportunities to advance
No hope for future advancement is one reason employees leave their respective companies. When you don’t recognize the unique strengths and qualities of their employees and give them opportunities to reach their potentials and receive promotions, they send a message to employees that they aren’t worth investing in. When you work with employees to set career goals and come up with actionable ways to achieve them, however, employees feel respected and valued.
If you’re having trouble keeping employees, take a step back and assess your actions as an employer. If you’re not having actual conversations with your employees, sharing information with them, listening to their concerns and working to make changes, improving your leadership skills, offering employees rewards and recognition, and offering them opportunities to advance, then you’re not giving your employees the respect they deserve, nor are you showing them they are valued. Do these six things–make these changes–and watch your employee satisfaction rise.
About the Author
Robert Cordray is a business consultant and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience and a wide variety of knowledge in multiple areas of the industry. As such, he enjoys spending his free time writing about what he’s learned from his years of experience in business in how to improve business processes.
Josh Tolan
