One of my green industry clients was on the verge of losing his top supervisor, and he didn’t even know about it. Fortunately, I was coaching this supervisor, and he expressed his unhappiness with his position in the company. After a few questions, he poured out his concerns. It boiled down to the inability of the owner and this individual manager to clearly communicate about the unmet expectations the supervisor had in his leadership role.
What we immediately did at that point was to schedule a meeting where I facilitated a discussion between the two of them. By the end of the meeting, we had developed a new understanding of how they needed to communicate with each other by thoroughly understanding each other’s communication styles. We had them review the communication assessment instrument that was used when the manager was hired. We pulled out the owner’s communication instrument and then put together a comparison report on both of their communication styles.
We followed that up with an in-depth debriefing session using that comparison report. The result: the owner and the manager are now communicating clearly and confidently with each other.
The manager is now totally engaged and motivated about the role he plays. He has taken on even more responsibility and is a top performer in the company today.
According to Gallup’s workforce indicators on well-being, “One of the greatest influences employers have on their employees’ daily emotions is the quality of management employees receive. Seventy percent of team engagement is attributable to one’s manager. This means that team leaders play an important role in their team’s emotional well-being.”
The important point to remember here is that if your leadership team is in an emotionally stable place in their work environment and they feel good about working for you and your company, then most likely, they will enjoy what they do and be productively engaged.
If they enjoy what they do and are productively engaged, the leadership team will have a positive effect on the people they supervise as well as the clients they meet.
Key #1 – To be successful at recruiting the best people, you first must do an excellent job of communicating with the people you already have.
Two reasons for this:
1. You prevent or resolve misunderstandings before they become reasons for a team member to leave your company.
2. Fully engaged and motivated employees will be your best recruiters for attracting other top-producing people to your green industry company.
Action steps
One of the first steps you can take to retain your best people is to hold a team meeting and ask them to brainstorm 10 good reasons why they like working at your company. Ask how those factors affect the overall culture of your company.
Next, ask them to brainstorm ten reasons why someone would want to leave your company. What seems to be missing or can be found at one of your competitors?
Finally, engage in a discussion to assure everyone that you will do your best to keep doing the things that make your company a great place to work. Ask them what they can do to contribute to help make that possible.
Then have a candid discussion of what everyone needs to do, including you, to eliminate the reasons why someone would want to leave your company.
Key #2 – Have a clearly defined career ladder for every person in your enterprise.
This is critical. In a recent study on why people leave a company, one of the top reasons was that the employees who left felt they did not have a clear direction for the development of their career potential. Quite simply, the company did not have a structured plan for their continuous professional development. The message was clear: the company didn’t really care about them or their future.
Action steps
Create a clear career development plan for each person in your company. Make sure it includes the types of training and certifications they will need to complete to help move to the next level within the organization.
When your team members see that you are serious about their professional development, they will be serious about working for your green industry company.
Key #3 – Pay competitive salaries with benefits.
It has been said, “You get what you pay for.” Today more than ever, you must be competitive with the salaries and wages you pay. With online access, your team members know how much your competitors are paying their leaders and employees in their respective positions.
Add that to the common knowledge that the cost of living has gone up substantially in the last four years. Today, it is more expensive than ever to purchase a house, a car, groceries — and that is only the beginning.
In addition to that, paying employees less than your competitors usually costs more in the long run because of the cost of replacing them, which stems from hiring and training new team members, plus the burden it places on the remaining employees and supervisors. This usually results in additional stress, tension and lower productivity levels.
Along with good benefits and fair wages, you can be extremely competitive, provided you also deliver on Keys #1 and #2.
Action steps
Do your research on what the competitive rates are in your geographic area. Make the proper adjustments with your leaders and employees.
By communicating with your people on a regular basis, making sure they are actively engaged in their growth path, and paying a competitive salary you will have the keys essential to recruit and retain top talent in your organization.
