In the human resources world, we all know how important it is to retain talented, well-liked employees. And, we all know that employees have choices in any economic climate. So how do we keep them engaged and working for us?
There are many books and papers on this topic, and here are some ideas we like. First, engage your employees. They are with you for hours and hours each week. Get to know them. Implement workplace engagement activities such as a tailgate for the big game in your city or hosting a family barbecue. Employees can get to know each other outside of work hours and remain involved.
Volunteering as a group is another good way to keep employees engaged. Most people enjoy giving back in some way, so make it easy for them. It can serve as a great teambuilding exercise while also giving employees meaningful experiences they associate with their workplace. This can help them want to stay working for you, especially if they know they’ll be making a difference while doing so. Many people want to add meaning to their lives in some way, and this is a great, easy way to do so.
In your day-to-day work environment, treat your employees fairly. Treat them how you’d want to be treated. Give the benefit of the doubt and ask yourself before making decisions or before taking action with an employee, does it make sense and is the best I can do? Show respect for others and practice the Golden Rule.
Challenge your workers. Meet regularly with your team and understand how they feel about their assigned tasks. Do they feel challenged or bored? Is their workload too much or just right? Do they need something else added in to challenge them? Are all the tasks they’re doing relevant and purposeful, or are there things they’re doing that are just time wasters? Make employees feel relevant and valued and value their time as you’d value yours. They’ll thank you for it.
We feel this topic is a really important one and will revisit more ideas next month. Thank you for reading!