Set Relationship Goals When Employee Retention Matters
Employee retention is a misguided goal when leaders neglect relationships.
Retention is about relationships. It’s normal to set results goals. It’s leadership to set relationship goals.
How can you make working with you delightful, even in high stress environments?
Goals for enabling retention through relationship:
#1. Encourage belonging goals.
- Know and celebrate the top strengths of everyone on the team.
- Assign projects based on strengths.
- Honor difference. Diversity is meaningless if everyone is the same.
- Listen without judgement.
- Say, “Tell me more,” regularly.
#2. Demonstrate support goals.
- Ask, “How can I help?”
- Practice empathy. Reflect on what it’s like to sit across from you.
- Reflect on times you felt supported. How can you practice those behaviors with others?
- Honor initiative and effort.
#3. Elevate purpose goals.
- Share customer stories.
- Speak about mission regularly. What’s the mission of your organization? Your team? How can you talk about it regularly?
- Connect values with work. How do daily tasks and goals reflect the values of your organization?
- Create opportunities for team members to build relationships with each other.
#4. Build trust goals.
- Share lessons you’ve learned from mistakes.
- Give honest, forward-facing feedback with respect and optimism.
- Hold yourself accountable.
#5. Remember personal information goals.
- Speak people’s names with kindness in your voice.
- Bring up family in conversation.
- Ask about important experiences.
#6. Show respect goals.
- When high performers set aggressive goals, occasionally suggest they lighten up on themselves.
- Notice when their eyes go bright.
- Support growth and development.
#7. Share authority goals.
- Ask competent people, “If you made this decision, what would you do next?” Follow with, “That sounds great. Go for it.”
- Try the ‘Intend to’ method.
- Delegate to people striving to get ahead.
Bonus: Have fun.
What relationship-focused goals can you develop for yourself today (Based on this post)?
What connection do you see between relationships and retention?
Still curious:
My Best Relationship Advice for Leaders
How to Build Real Relationships at Work (hbr.org)
Loved, “How can you make working with you delightful, even in high stress environments?”
Well it’s something to shoot for. It’s nice to have a goal. 🙂 And for some of us, being a little more delightful is a good thing.
Start by working on becoming a person of character. People are drawn to connect with and stay with people who are authentic and credible.
Thanks Paul. I suppose you could have said, “Be yourself.” I like how you said it. It feels more challenging to me.
I’m so glad you focused on Purpose goals. That seems to be a strong driver in retention. From my research, I have noticed that the most vital driver of attracting and retaining top talent is that they work for a leader they trust, respect, and admire. More than 70% of people who quit a job do not quit the job. They quit their dreadful boss. Thank you for another wonderful post, Dan.
It’s funny, John, we know people quit bosses not jobs. But we don’t spend enough time on being the type of leader who people love to work with.
Thanks for the good word, John. It means a lot to me.
I was on a difficult assignment as a new employee (audit team working with a difficult, noncooperative auditee). The team leader and the senior both took advantage of the significant downtime to provide me with extensive on-the-job training, covering aspects that most folks would have considered too advanced for a new employee. But they had the time (and had already covered the basics).
Fast-forward to when I was a team leader on a similarly difficult assignment (different auditee, same behavior). I similarly used the downtime to provide on-the-job training to my staff. Because that’s what I was supposed to do, based on my experience.
Wonderful story, Jennifer. If I was a betting person, I’d bet you stayed with that company for a while. 🙂