How Meaningful Conversations Will Retain Your Best Employees
When your top talent leave; it’s usually avoidable.
(Read or watch - your choice!)
42% of employees who voluntarily left their organisation in the last year report that their manager or organisation could have done something to prevent them leaving their job.
Replacing leaders or managers costs around 200% of their salary.
People in technical roles - 80% of salary.
Front-line employees - 40% of salary.
There’s no getting away from it, losing employees is costly. We all know that. It’s nothing new.
But, as the opening stat suggests, some of it is entirely avoidable.
And most of it comes down to good old fashioned, meaningful conversation.
Why don’t they say something?
Now, it could be easy to put the onus on them, saying, “well why aren’t these employees saying anything? I like to think I’m pretty approachable. I’m not a mind reader. It’s a 2 way street.”
And quite often, the honest response to that from employees that leave is:
“I didn’t feel like I could.”
“We never spoke about that stuff. Important stuff - my performance - my happiness - opportunities to grow - to advance my career. None of it”
Profound insight from Beverly Hills
And it made me think of something I heard watching Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F the other day - it’s a guilty pleasure. I’ve always loved the films.
Axel says to his estranged daughter, Jane, as she asks why he stopped trying: “Hey, look, we both messed things up, let’s call it even.”
To which she replies: “A parent is always the parent, the child is always the child. We didn’t mess this up, you messed this up. Goodbye.”
Now, profound is not generally the word that springs to mind when I think of Beverly Hills cop but it packed a punch.
Back to your team
As a manager, the people in your care are not your children. Neither should you treat them as such.
But, they are the people in your care.
And it’s your responsibility to initiate the right conversations, build the right kind of relationships and foster the right level of care so that people are more likely to speak up about things that they’re not happy about or that concern them etc.
We talk about CARE all of the time and just how critical it is for any team or organisation.
And there are 2 key elements - Connection to the people and connection to the shared purpose.
1. Connection to People: caring about each other as individuals on a personal and professional level. This requires a foundation of curiosity, understanding and trust.
A question that we often get managers to ask of their teams is:
“What do you need from this team to feel safe, supported and inspired.”
We don’t often talk about this stuff so explicitly and the process of hearing your team share fundamental wants and needs can be incredibly powerful.
2. Connection to Purpose: is about an understanding and genuine care about where you’re going together as a team - your strategic direction and the associated goals, but also your north star and shared reason to believe. So that people understand how their part fits into the bigger picture.
When you get these 2 elements right, people care too much not to say something, when something’s not right.
Managers need to be proactive in building this culture of connection and care, rather than reacting to things when they go wrong and when it might be too late.
So what?
So, looking at those people that voluntarily leave:
36% of people that leave jobs say that they didn’t talk to anyone before making that decision.
And of those people that did express their intentions, 40% said that they didn’t talk to the manager.
The aim of this piece is not to instil fear about all the things that your team aren’t telling you.
Instead, it’s to reinforce just how important it is to nurture the relationships with the people in your team. To keep talking.
David Richmond CBE, one of our executive coaches, leadership expert and absolute well of inspiration says “leadership is a deeply human business.”
And so much of your role in keeping your team challenged, happy and high performing is about serving fundamental human needs.
And to get to know about what these are for your teams, you have to initiate the right, meaningful conversations and keep those channels of communication open.
How we can help:
If you’re daunted about where to start, feeling a bit lost, or just really curious to know and understand your team better - we have a fantastic free tool that can help provide a map for initiating these conversations with your team. It's called INTENT:
We ask 25 key questions in relation to the 5 founding elements for a high performing culture. Authenticity - Care- Empowerment - Presence - Purpose.
You can take 5 minutes right now to fill it in from your perspective about your team by clicking here.
The real value lies in your ability to compare your results to what your team say. This insight provides a basis for some brilliant, honest conversations with your team.
We’ve seen it work again and again.
Try it out, and get in touch with your thoughts and questions.
By Chris Wickenden 25.07.2024