4 Ways Executives Can Improve Employee Retention
Posted on May 25, 2018 by Jonathan Mills
The executive team has a great deal of influence over an organization’s Corporate Culture, and Human Resources cannot take its place. As an exec, if you want Employee Retention to improve then you need to be active in shaping your culture. Here are four ways to help you do that.
Focus the Executive Team on Culture
Hold frequent team huddles that focus on your company’s culture.
Executive team members are either Culture Champions or Villains! They have more influence over whether people stay than anyone else in the organization, and passing the buck to HR (unless you have given them a seat at the table) is equivalent to inaction. There is no way to hand-off that influence. The result of trying is a vacuum that leaves your culture leaderless. If you want to retain employees and reduce turnover you need to take responsibility. Choose to become a Culture Champion and rally your team to do the same. Recruit the entire executive team by holding frequent huddles with a focus on employee retention and culture.
Manage your Employee Relationships
“Walkabout”; executives need to spend real time with employees on all levels of the organization.
Employees need connectedness to survive—with leaders and with peers. Executives also need connectedness to foster trust and avoid working in a knowledge bubble. Without effective Employee Relationship Management your company will splinter into cliques and sub-clans, which leaves your culture divided and employee happiness dependent on day-to-day circumstances. You will also never receive honest feedback, because employees are prone to lie about their circumstances. They have a natural fear of retribution from managers, executives, and clients.
“Whatever the structure of a relationship, we often fail to strengthen our personal connections—the emotional ties that bring us close to a specific person. Brothers and sisters who live in different communities may drift apart and rarely communicate. Yet, strangers who happen to sit next to one another on a long airline flight may, within hours, be exchanging personal stories that they have not shared with good friends.” -Beyond Reason, Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro
Give and Receive Meaningful Feedback
Implement attainable, measurable, repeatable feedback practices. Collect both quantitative and qualitative information.
Employees need to trust their executives, and execs need to trust their employees. As a leader, you are prone to surround yourself with people that share your beliefs or have predictable differences. This leaves you in an information bubble, where you cannot see what employees need until it is too late. Pop the bubble by finding ways to interact with employees that have dramatically different viewpoints. Find “dissenters” to break your expectations and challenge your assumptions. Institute regularly scheduled feedback practices like surveys and interviews, but also break the mold by using less conventional methods like casual get-togethers. BE TRANSPARENT!
Believe in your Employees’ Potential with Sincerity
Adopt a sincere belief that every employee has the potential to be amazing.
The idea that only certain employees are “good employees” is deceptive. The truth is that EVERY employee has the potential for passion, inspiration, creativity, and self-actualization It isn’t always obvious, but everyone in your organization has the potential to become top talent. Each employee also has the power to make or break your employment brand, no matter how well you market yourself. As your culture evolves, whatever qualities it fosters will come to light in your teams; and the most effective way to speed that process is with sincere belief. People will pick up on that sincerity and reciprocate with loyalty, trust, and passion, ultimately resulting in excellent employee retention.
If you pay attention and leverage these purposeful culture practices then your employee retention will improve. Corporate Culture Specialist is an organization dedicated to helping you reduce turnover, foster talent, and ultimately shape an incredible workforce. If you would like to know more, please visit us at culturespecialist.com or contact us here.