It’s hard to find the best talent today but once you have them on board, there are things you can and should do to retain them for the long term. This almost certainly will require your management teams to work harder to ensure that the best talent sticks around.
How can you become a better leader to help improve productivity but also to help retain your workforce?
Tips for Becoming a Stronger Leader
People still leave their jobs due to conflict with their bosses. Recent research shows that 57% of employees leave because of some sort of conflict with their manager. Interestingly, that same research also shows that 70% of frontline managers say they were promoted unexpectedly, and nearly 20% of them also say they regret the promotion.
The data shows us that there is room for improvement in how we manage our teams. If you’re an employee, you most certainly have had a bad experience with your manager at one point or another. It’s a very common theme in the work world. If you’re a manager, the data should tell you that you need to work on your leadership skills. If you think you’re doing fine, look at it this way: the data also shows that the better manager you are the more productive your team will be.
This leads us to some tips for managers that will help them become better leaders. For example, you can:
Work on your ability to be empathic with your employees.
Empathy is the number one leadership skill that will help you relate to your employees and make them feel better about their job. This can be a hard skill to learn, particularly because many managers are promoted up the chain of command but have very little training in how to lead. Empathy does not mean you become friends with your staff. But it does mean that you share a common human experience and that you are a person, too.
Practice active listening with your employees.
Being a good listener compliments your goal to improve empathy skills. It will help you understand what that worker values and what’s important to them. If you hear your employee saying they are struggling with their workload, get them some help or help them delegate tasks. Your efforts to hear what your employees are reflecting back and then acting upon it will help build employee loyalty and make a difference in retention.
Create gratitude in the workplace as a cultural norm.
When was the last time you thanked your employees for their work? You should start every meeting with five minutes of gratitude. Point out people who went above and beyond. Thank people for staying late to hit an important deadline. Then encourage your workforce to do the same. The best bosses lead more by the carrot than by the stick. To improve your leadership skills, you should emulate this approach.
Why PrideStaff?
At PrideStaff, our franchisees are proud to be in a business that puts people to work, helps companies to grow and prosper, and to build a business that is respected in their community. We have a culture that is truly unique in that whether you are looking at our Mission Statement or Core Values, they are so much more to us than slogans on a website. We have them, not because we feel like we have to, but rather because they serve as a guide for the decisions we make and direction we follow.
The focus is 100% on the client experience we provide on a day-to-day basis. What that has led to is consistently being recognized in the top 1% of the staffing industry in Client Loyalty and Talent (Candidate) Loyalty, which of course translates into repeat and referral business. We are a company with a fantastic culture and drive to meet and exceed our clients’ needs.
If you’re a manager in need of top talent, talk to our team. We specialize in filling even the most difficult positions and can help you build your team.
