Do Your Employees Know How Much You Value Them?

As a member of an HR team, you may sometimes feel like your efforts toward promotion of employee wellbeing are marginalized. Take heart, because now is your time to shine! Your actions are suddenly being understood as essential to retention. The holistic approach is appreciated. Now, employee feelings while producing widgets are of equal importance to widget production. The following are four research proven ways to ensure retention. First, we need to stop imposing our assumptions about the reasons behind employee departures. Employees want to matter. It’s a deal breaker if an employee does not feel valued by their organization, managers, or co-workers. Capture employee feedback with regular roundtables, “Ask Me Anything” meetings with executives, and reviews with upper-level management. Second, show employees their value by providing professional development opportunities. Exercise flexibility by granting employees the autonomy to choose their own teams or test drive new positions in which they are interested. Make sure that employees are provided with adequate customer feedback that validates employee contribution. Third, open your eyes and commit to seeing the ugly. What I mean by that is that if you are not striving to create and operate an autocracy everyone is not a happy camper – guaranteed. Address the negative whisperings. Practice transparency and behave like a leader. If as a leader you have the training to forecast several years into the future and your employees don’t, utilize your leadership skills and summarize and share projections in a way that your employees can understand. Finally, make sure that your ERGs are vibrant, constantly evolving places of sanctuary for employees. Thriving ERGs amplify employee voice and perspective, include every level within the hierarchy, are visited frequently CEOs and employees create and run them. Bottom line, show your employees how valuable they are to you.