Don’t leave your employees on “Seen”
Originally published as a LinkedIn article.
It’s just not a smart idea to ignore the storm brewing in your sales department or the whispers of mini mutinies from the support team that manages to reach your workspace. You may dismiss these unverified tip-offs thinking to yourself “well, looks like people are bored”, but do you really want to run the risk of it turning into something much more threatening?
Usually, there are a hundred things happening in the organisation at a time which forces you to prioritise specific actions that “directly” impact business growth and revenue.
By the time you manage to take out time to address the issues, your inbox lights up with a not-so-polite resignation email.
It’s not an easy feat to stay on top of everything that’s transpiring in the workplace. It takes time and energy to go through the feedback forms or annual employee surveys and, let’s be honest, those don’t really give you a lot of useful data to play with.
While you’re on your own quest to identify the root cause of dissatisfaction, your company’s Glassdoor profile ends up collecting negative reviews from your ex and soon-to-be-ex-employees.
It’s a challenging job, trying to keep track of every employee’s emotional state, but someone’s got to do it. You can’t risk your top performers leaving the organisation. Your employees are the one bringing in revenue; their expertise and skills are invaluable for your business.
Until the time they are satisfied with their job conditions and are doing their part with focus and responsibility, it’s going to be smooth sailing for the company.
However, the moment they observe that their efforts aren’t being appreciated, or their leaders are biased, the situation will turn grave very fast.
“Employees who feel that their voice is heard at work are nearly five-times (4.6X) more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work.”
Source: Salesforce
A workplace culture that prioritises employees’ mental health, career goals, motivations, and values is not that rare. The key is to follow-up on these promises.
The management team has to figure out what motivates your employees to go that extra mile, to make them feel proud to be associated with the company. The happier they are with their job condition and the leadership, the more engaged they are, and the more accountable they feel towards their duties.
It’s not just the HR who is in charge of taking care of employees’ emotional or financial needs; the responsibility also lies with the leaders.
They need to acknowledge the connection between employee happiness and business profitability, and how much their top performers contribute to the growth of the entire organisation.
No number of gift vouchers or laminated awards can compensate for less-than-ideal work conditions, job dissatisfaction, workplace bullying, and demotivation.
It’s absolutely crucial that you’re aware of what’s happening in your organisation in real-time.
To have all of your employees committed to your company goals, to get them to respect the company time and resources is not an easy thing to achieve, especially for large organisations with thousands of employees, but it’s not unattainable.
Start by listening to your employees
(That sure sounds creepy without any context)
Encourage them to share their thoughts and reflections on important matters that affect work conditions at optimal times, such as, after project completion, implementation of new policies, company-wide transitions, or after you get a new coffee machine for the break room!
Create a workflow to trigger follow-up questions based on the responses received. This will enable you to get a deeper understanding of your employees’ state of mind — if someone’s in an emotional turmoil, or is burned out, or even if someone’s happy with the way the company progresses.
Allow your employees to choose the frequency of their one-on-ones or performance evaluation meetings.
Plan agenda, activities, follow-ups in a single platform to ensure that the sessions are productive and meaningful. Listen to their ambitions and goals, document plan of action, and offer them support in their personal growth journey.
Keep track of their achievements, celebrate their wins, and motivate them to reach their potential.
The time and energy you spend to secure your employees’ well-being will not only help you create a positive company culture but will also push them to take accountability of their actions and strive to achieve the organisational goals together.
Think about it this way — just as your customers deserve a hyper-personalised approach to provide them with the maximum value and retain their business, so do your employees.
How do you show your employees that you value their suggestions and opinions?
