A recent LinkedIn survey reveals that as many as 61% of workers are considering quitting their jobs this year. It’s often been said that people don’t quit bad jobs, they leave poor bosses. How can you be the manager that everyone wants to work for? Here are a few ideas to implement.
Stop Worrying About Being Liked
When you try to please everyone, you wind up satisfying no one. People would rather work for someone they respect but don’t necessarily like. Don’t be afraid to make those hard decisions when needed. Your employees will respect you for it, even if they don’t always agree with you on everything.
Having your employees like you may not be essential. However, being a generally likable person is. You expect others to treat you with respect so you should be willing to show it as well. Treat workers the way you would want to be managed by your own boss if you were in the same situation. There’s no guarantee they’ll like you, but they’ll nonetheless respect you.
Remain Consistent
Nothing is more frustrating than having two sets of rules. When your standards constantly change (or only apply in certain situations), it leaves your workers guessing as to what you want. In some cases, they may even feel as though they are walking on eggshells to keep from upsetting you.
Make sure you have clear expectations that apply to everybody all the time. And try to keep from changing the rules on a regular basis too. You don’t want people getting used to one set of guidelines only to find out they’re no longer applicable. And by maintaining consistency, you’ll avoid the appearance of favoritism and leave your associates with a few less things to worry about.
Provide Meaningful Goals
It’s not enough to have teams that are focused on the company’s goals. Your workers need to have their own achievements as well. Think about smaller successes they could focus on that would ultimately help with reaching the bigger objective.
For example, if you’ve set a sales goal, you might reward individuals who come up with a certain number of leads. You could even set up a little friendly competition and establish a reward for the winner. Your competitors will have a sense of accomplishment and will therefore recognize how valuable their own contributions are.
Give and Accept Feedback Regularly
Annual evaluations serve little purpose, and in fact may actually increase tension. Rather than a yearly performance review, make regular feedback a part of your routine. Notice the little things people do and then take the time to say “thank you” for it. Workers will like hearing that they’ve done a good job, and it will make your constructive criticism a little easier for them to handle.
In addition to providing feedback, you should be willing to accept it as well. For this to work, you’ll have to be approachable and willing to listen. It doesn’t mean you will let your employees’ run things, but instead means you will take their suggestions into account when making certain decisions. And if something does need to change you will fix it-even if that means you must make your own concessions in order to do so.
Helping You Keep Your Employees Happy
A great boss is important, but so are timely pay and benefits. Partner with Abel HR and you’ll have more time to develop those important leadership characteristics that will help you reduce turnover. Contact us today to find out how we can help you reach your goals.
