Maximize Employee Retention by Mentoring "Spirited Patriots"

What if your employee retention was sky high? How would that impact your customers and business results? Let us be honest, too many employees are like paid mercenaries not spirited patriots. They have little loyalty to the organization. The pandemic highlights the dismal employee engagement tactics by companies which helped to facilitate the current nightmarish labor market. As a result, managers and companies are desperate to recruit and retain employees.

In response to the tight labor market companies are increasing wages. Duh? If you must do it now, you should have done it before. However, pay increases alone will not keep employees. A nasty company culture and oppressive management behavior reduces employee performance and drives them away.

Embrace the following two critical approaches to instill enthusiasm and commitment in your team so they want to stay and do an excellent job.

Values and Culture Drive Employee Retention

You heard the saying, if you keep doing what you have always done, you will keep getting what you always got. If you have an employee retention problem, you must change! That means redefine the lifecycle of an employee in your organization from recruiting to retiring. That is a daunting process that will compel most to fail. Here is where to start, redefine or reignite your values and culture. People today want positive work cultures that make the world a nicer and safer place. Make sure your culture supports this building spirited patriots not paid mercenaries. By the way, any manager can, regardless of company strategy, do this in his or her department or team.

Then, prioritize training and coaching your managers how to become better managers. Why? They are the ones that deliver on the culture. Research shows they own 70% of the variance in employee performance and engagement. Furthermore, over time change your approaches in other areas.

Use Servant Leadership to Inspire Employees

Overtime managers learn through training or education to focus on goals, plans, procedures, products sales, and results. These are the seen elements of managing. These are the measured statistical elements of a job. That is all good. However, while these elements focus an employee getting a job done, they do not necessarily inspire people to be their best.

Herzberg and others determined that true motivation is intrinsic. The unseen elements include recognition, learning, growth, advancement, pride, well-being, and achievement. These are the unseen elements of performance. This involves the inner spirit of a person. Through Servant Leadership training managers learn how to tap this spirit in people. Servant Leaders prioritize elevating People First to help them get what they want or need to be successful. Most importantly, Servant Leadership approaches achieve 24% greater performance which is much better than other methods.

Servant Leaders care for and earn the trust of their employee’s. Consequently, this positive relationship compels employees to perform their jobs at higher levels. They become spirited patriots driven by the fulfillment of intrinsic unseen motivational forces.

Pulling It All Together

A company that values employees-People First-provides a compensation and benefits package that is above average if not industry leading. Research shows that pay/benefits are also important in recruiting, keeping people, and improving goal performance. After all, nobody is doing the job for free.

In conclusion, with attention on these areas companies and managers can quickly create reputations that honor people, help them win, and treat them right. This will go a long way to increase employee retention.

In addition, do you want to learn proven approaches? Do you want to become a better leader? If so, I suggest you check out this complimentary eBook: How to Motivate-No-Inspire Employees: 10 Keys to Employee Engagement.

Also, go here for our RealTime Learning and Training leadership and personal development website. Micro-learning at your fingertips!

Finally, see this for details on Rick’s latest book, click here: The 5 Dynamics of Servant Leadership.