How to Show Employees That You Care, and Why it Matters
By Lori Weyuker
The Stepping Stone, December 2021
We live in an age of rapid change. An effective people manager helps team members successfully get through times of change. One way to do this is to show employees that you care about them.
Why does this matter?
Not only is it the right thing to do, but it can also reduce turnover and its resulting problems.
According to an article[1] by Zippia.com (a website offering employment guidance), the employee turnover rate in the United States has increased from 42.6 percent in 2016 to 57.3 percent in 2020. Furthermore, 3.1 percent of people quit their jobs in just April 2021. Seventy percent of all job separations were from employees quitting their jobs—the highest proportion since the collection of this type of data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s an increase from only 17 percent in April 2020.
Employee turnover has a significant budgetary impact. According to one study,[2] quitting costs a company 33 percent of the employee’s salary. In addition to hard dollars such as costs of recruiting and hiring temp workers, there is a soft-dollar impact. When an employee quits, it can impact morale in a negative way: It decreases employee productivity amongst the remaining employees. It can make some employees disengaged in their work.
In addition to turnover, there are worker shortages in certain sectors. According to a study[3] by Catalyst (2020), talent shortages are expected to have a noticeable deleterious impact on businesses by 2030.
So how do we as people managers take action to increase worker retention? One of the most significant and impactful ways to improve worker retention is to show our teammates that we, as people managers, care about them.
Here are several practical steps we can take.
Employees want and need to feel valued. The numeric symbol of an employee feeling valued is compensation, raises and bonuses. How can we help in this area when there may be company budget limitations?
- Communicate clearly and frequently with an employee with an action plan as to how they can get promoted.
- Provide an employee with opportunities to shine in front of management by arranging for them to speak at a meeting or to present some of their work.
- Show employees clearly what is expected of them so they can more easily hit the mark and hence be successful.
- When they perform well, remunerate them appropriately. When annual reviews take place, stand up for your employees and go to bat for them. Have proof lined up to present to management that demonstrates that they have earned the raise/promotion.
- Promote employees regularly. This has the positive spillover effect that other team members see that getting promoted is possible. This can energize other team members to perform better and to be more engaged in their work.
Employees want open communication with management. According to a recent study[4] by Deloitte (2020), 62 percent of employees who chose to stay at their jobs say that it is because they trust their leadership.
- To elicit trust from employees, we need to engender bidirectional open and clear communication with our team members.
- Set regularly scheduled small team meetings in which employees can openly ask any questions they may have about what’s happening at the top of the company. This can range from questions about layoff rumors to any aspect of work.
- If you don’t know the answer, tell them as such. See if you can arrange for someone at a very high level of senior management to speak at one of your team meetings to answer questions. This approach can have a very positive effect on your team.
Employees want a good working relationship with their manager. According to one study,[5] 19 percent of those surveyed choosing to stay at their jobs are doing so because they have a good working relationship with their manager. How can we achieve and maintain a good working relationship with our employees?
- As a foundation, having a regularly scheduled weekly one-on-one meeting with each of your employees at which the employee can openly ask about any appropriate topic is key. These regular meetings can accomplish much to achieve trust which leads to a good working relationship.
- At these meetings, make sure that it’s a two-way communication.
- Tell your teammates about your professional background, how you got to where you are, things which helped you along the way. Your employees will likely be very interested in this.
We live in rapidly changing times. Our job as people managers includes helping our employees successfully get through these times of change. This is not only the right thing to do, it’s good business.
Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the newsletter editors, or the respective authors’ employers.
Lori Weyuker, ASA, is an independent consultant. She is currently on the SOA’s Leadership & Development Section Council. She can be reached at InnovationLW@gmail.com. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-w-5276603/