Employee Retention Ideas for Executives

Nowadays, it’s more common for people to change jobs than ever before. The age of remaining with a single company for the long haul is gone. So, what drives people to make so many career changes?

Arguably, we’re living in an era of increasingly diverse job opportunities across a wide array of industries. Unsurprisingly, many people choose to seek out work that they find more fulfilling.

However, I believe there’s one other main reason people leave their jobs—the work they enjoy and the employment they thrive in. A significant portion of workplace dissatisfaction stems from leadership shortcomings. Employees often quit their bosses, not their jobs.

This isn’t a very popular idea, but it’s worth investigating. As a manager, business owner, or company executive, are you the reason your employee retention rates are down? Do you push workers out because you’re unapproachable, a “helicopter boss,” or unclear about your expectations?

Here are six employee retention ideas to assess where you stand and how to make positive changes to work better with your team.

1. Seek and react to honest feedback about your communication style.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s the #1 thing that will make or break a work environment. Ask your team for their input and listen to what they have to say. Your tone and communication style are equally as important as what you say, so be conscious of those things, too.

Consider obtaining feedback from a 360-degree assessment on your performance. Based on your learning, reassess your attitude and adopt a more supportive and different approach.

2. Create realistic and understandable goals.

Your teammates want to be successful, and they yearn for well-defined performance goals and regular discussions about their progress.

List out your values and communicate them to your team. This is especially important for millennial colleagues. They want feedback and meaningful, constructive criticism.

3. Include your teammates before making decisions.

Strive for 100% inclusion. This doesn’t mean allowing chaos or relying on committee decisions. Instead, ask for ideas and solutions, and give ample credit to those who contribute.

Also, it supports creativity. Unfortunately, organizations often unintentionally squash creativity. Your company’s contributors are probably different than you, so use this to your advantage. Discover ways to harness the creative energy within your team. Listen carefully and be open. A clear policy of inclusion and creativity should always be part of your employee retention programs.

4. Carefully explain the rules of the game and follow them.

If you establish rules for the team and then fail to follow them personally, you will lose your team’s respect, which can negatively impact your employee retention rates.

Consistently talk about expanded limits for decision-making. Employees want to know the extent of their authority when you aren’t around. Be more supportive of personal initiative, risk-taking, and mistakes.

Try implementing a system such as “Unless I Hear Differently” (or UIHD) to keep things rolling smoothly and empower your team to make decisions using their intuition and logic.

5. Pump up your energy level.

Believe it or not, your team prays that you will have great energy, passion, and optimism. Regardless of your industry, making a conscious effort to create fun is a great way to retain talent. Manufacture exciting things to do in the workplace. Keep it light and funny, and laugh as a group at the crazy things that happen.

6. Create variety in jobs.

Most people hate routine work – perhaps this applies to you, too!

Another employee retention strategy is to provide your workers with various projects and opportunities to contribute beyond their current roles. When a team member does something well, openly and energetically celebrate their success. Take the opportunity to trumpet what worked well instead of finding other reasons to complain about things that went wrong in different areas.

The main takeaway here: Find a way to pan those gold nuggets of success.

As an executive or business owner, you don’t have to be the reason your employees leave for other opportunities. You can create a supportive and vibrant company culture by using some of the abovementioned ideas regarding employee retention. If you’d like to conduct further research, “The Law of Magnetism” by John Maxwell is an excellent resource.

For more expertise on improving your talent retention strategies and leadership skills, please complete my contact form to schedule a complimentary one-hour coaching session with me.

Coach Dave