Keep your Best Employees
How to Keep your Superstar Employees from Looking Elsewhere
As a manager, it’s your job to foster a working environment where everyone is inspired to be and do their best. That’s our primary mission at Einblau & Associates – helping leaders build business cultures that stimulate employee engagement and commitment. Still, the concept of “inspiring workplace” is a pretty subjective phrase. Everyone has a different point of view.
Whether it’s a tough job market, or a booming, robust one, leaders need to focus on how to keep their best people. It takes a lot of money to make a superstar leave a great boss who’s paved the way for them to be their best. It takes very little to entice someone away from a negative, unsupportive environment.
To create an inspiring workplace environment, the keystone isn’t a what, it’s a who — the manager! What follows is a compilation of behaviours that managers should observe and practice.
Managers should:
- Solicit staff opinions, suggestions, and feedback.
- Let people do work they’re good at.
- Support upward mobility within the company, encouraging career goals and skill development.
- Assemble teams who prioritize open communication and equal accountability among team members.
- Maintain high standards and expectations of all employees; no-one gets a free ride.
- Ensure that employees know their job descriptions and understand exactly what is expected.
- Help employees see the big picture and the importance of their contributions.
- Engage with employees on an informal basis, establishing rapport and showing support.
- Demonstrate trust by not telling them exactly how to do everything. Be open to them finding their own paths to end goals.
- Take responsibility when things go wrong and give credit when things go right.
Each behaviour falls under one of four workplace “conditions” that comprise what we call, The Commitment Model (below). The four conditions of a great work environment are Clarity, Competency, Influence, and Appreciation.
The Commitment Model
Managers who a) communicate with clarity, b) encourage competency and skill development, c) give employees authority and influence over their work, and d) show appreciation in specific terms, will create a great work environment that generates confidence, engagement, and loyalty among their staff.
Here’s a brief description of these workplace conditions (below).
Workplace Conditions in a Nutshell
Let’s revisit the list of managerial behaviours to see which condition of a great environment they help create.
So how, exactly, can these behaviours be put into action? By becoming a manager who coaches! Developing and implementing coaching skills has a direct, net positive, effect on the engagement of your team. Coaching conversations create the conditions that lead to a great work environment where people are inspired to be their best.
At Einblau, we develop coach-managers directly through our Coaching for Commitment course. Coaching provides a systematic means of developing and applying managerial competencies from the get-go. Becoming a coach-manager is a strategic, interesting, smart, and effective way to build and sustain a work culture that makes good people want to stay.
