Successful leaders say that people make companies successful and not the other way around.
These leaders believe that having the right people in the right place at the right time represents their greatest competitive advantage and as a consequence they act in a specific way in order to retain their precious people.
Many leaders assume that people leave companies mainly because of money.
But, is it really true?
Studies report that employees quit for many different reasons and, unfair compensation is among them.
But there are many other reasons. For example people quit because of:
- Lack of appreciation
- Lack of career growth
- Lack of clarity on company’s vision
- Lack of flexible work options
- Toxic work culture
- Bad leadership
- And many others
So let’s see how great leaders retain the best people to guarantee company success.
They mainly focus on four different areas.
The first area is: Appreciation and reward.
Great leaders provide feedback to their people on an ongoing basis.
They acknowledge their people’s effort through a valuable feedback giving process.
They also don’t forget to recognize their people’s natural value and the positive impact they have in the organization. This has an enormous impact on boosting people’s morale and motivation.
Sometimes, they also acknowledge the joined efforts of a whole team or department, in order to underline that everyone benefits from working together.
The second area is: Skills development.
These leaders spend time with their people to understand their expectations and ambitions.
They help their people to develop their skills by offering to each one of them appropriate training resources and clear pathways for advancing their careers. In fact, they are aware that training people is key to company success.
For example, management training and coaching can enable middle management staff to perform at their full potential, by improving at the same time the way they manage their people.
The third one is: Work-life balance.
Great leaders know that working from the office doesn’t always guarantee efficiency and – based on the nature of the work – working from home is not always as effective as being present in person.
For this reason, lots of leaders and companies have begun to include some degree of flexible working in their employee offering, such as part-time, compressed hours, flexitime and working from home.
By doing so, people are able to skip time-consuming daily commutes, save costs and have more flexible schedules and hours which help them improve their work-life balance.
The fourth and final area is: Work Culture.
Great leaders create a positive and collaborative culture.
They start by balancing their team workload, they encourage them to collaborate and play to each other’s strengths. This way everyone has an equal chance to contribute.
There are effective leaders who create a culture where mistakes are tolerated, even encouraged, because they want their people to learn from mistakes and failures. In fact, high performance teams need to make mistakes in order to push the boundaries of performance.
By doing so, these leaders help people not to be afraid to share their opinions and provide solutions to problems.
So, this is how great leaders retain the best people.
But before we go, I want to remark that to retain the best people it is also important to communicate in a way that helps your people to focus on potential and possibility instead of fear and uncertainty without forgetting to be grateful and recognize what your people, old and new, are going through.
