Want to Retain Your Employees? Invest in Your Managers

As the world looks to the great reshuffle and great resignation, companies are scrambling to keep up in the race to hire employees to fill much needed roles. However, one overlooked fact as many companies look to hire is in retaining employees. Hiring fast and hiring right is going to be critical to helping companies meet the demands of the post-COVID economy, but if companies don’t invest in retaining and nurturing existing talent, they’ll be forced to fight battles on both ends – the battle to hire, and the battle of attrition.

Retaining employees has always been important to the long term health of a business. Most managers know the feeling of what happens when a great employee leaves, as well as the time and effort and cost it takes to replace them. However, smart companies know that in this hiring market, simply letting their employees walk is not an option, and are looking for ways to improve company health and employee engagement to minimize attrition. In a time of the “great resignation,” where potentially up to 50% of the workforce is looking for a new opportunity, talent retention is not a nice to have, it’s an absolute must have. And for companies who want to focus on retaining talent, the best thing you can do right now is start investing in your managers. 

The Importance of Your Managers In Retaining Your Workforce

The old adage is that employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers. The reverse is also true, employees stay and thrive when their managers help them succeed. And, with lack of career development being one of the top reasons employees leave companies, if you want to improve employee retention, development, and motivation, intentionally investing in your employee’s development is not optional, its table stakes.

Here are a few things you can do to invest in your managers and retain your employees.

#1) Coach your managers to communicate and deliver on your organization’s promises.

You may already have programs and policies in place to address these items. But those efforts fall short if your front-line employees aren’t aware of them. Employees experience your organization through their manager. If your managers aren’t doing it, it’s not your culture. It is imperative that managers are trained to care about employees as people and set expectations of ethical and inclusive behavior.

#2) Empower Managers to use their discretion around new protocols, processes and policies

As companies come up with their own back to work policies, we enter an unknown and unchartered territory since most of these have never been tried before. During this time of uncertainty and ambiguity, empower your managers to use their discretion to do what makes sense for the well-being and engagement of their people. In some cases, this may cause more localized interpretations of organizational-wide policies, especially in large organizations. 

This may cause some consternation to those who wish to have more of an organized and uniform policy, but resist the urge for conformity and empower managers to use their discretion as to what makes sense for them. For example, if the policy is for employees to work at home on the same day, but for some reason, a manager and their direct reports find that this is an issue, encourage the manager to find a solution that works best for their team, even if it’s against the initial policy.

#3) Invest in Career Development as an Organizational Capability

During the Great Recession, employers adopted the philosophy that employees needed to own their career development. They were in charge of their learning and as a result, organizations adopted learning activities such as microlearning, social learning, and more self-directed learning. While this worked for some, others got left behind, but the desire for career development has never been stronger. According to PWC 95% of employees are looking for career growth and development, but only 40% believe their employer provides it.

Now is the time to invest in career development as an org-wide capability. WIth this capability, employers and employees can work together to identify learning opportunities that connect to organizational outcomes and goals. In this model, while it is directed by the employee, the manager helps provides resources, coaching and encouragement. With this in mind, c

Career development is about the organization and employees working together to identify learning opportunities. There’s no rule that says managers have to tell employees what to learn. And there’s also no rule that says all learning must happen in the office. Use this as an opportunity to build a career development plan that meets both employee and employer needs.

#4) Encourage Managers to Have More Regular Career Conversations

The Great Resignation is not a secret. You can’t go a day without reading an article or hearing a discussion about it or seeing a colleague put in their resignation. Instead of ignoring it, empower and encourage your managers to start career conversations with their employees. These career conversations should be about where the employee sees themselves learning and growing, what skills they’d like to use, or for ideas around additional learning and training. 

Managers often avoid having career development conversations with employees. In a recent survey done by BlessingWhite, 77% of employees indicated that they want to talk to their managers about their careers at least quarterly, but the majority of the time, these conversations are happening annually…at best. These career conversations should be separate from any performance evaluation, and solely focused on helping the employee understand based on where they hope to develop, and how the manager can help them get there. 

Managers play an outsized role in the employee experience and in fostering employee engagement. Investing and empowering them with the right set of tools, training, and teaching can help you navigate the new world of work, and set your employees up for success.

Are you interested in developing more productive and effective managers? Contact Us today

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