Regardless of the industry, you operate in, it is crucial for business leaders to keep employees engaged and motivated to lower employee turnover rates. Did you know that:

✓ In 2019, 42 million U.S. employees left their jobs voluntarily. This is approximately 27 percent of the workforce; and
✓ It showed an increase of more than two million compared to the turnover figure recorded in 2018.

Studies further reveal that the cost of losing a trained employee is relatively high. The key factors  that contribute to the real value of losing an employee include:

✓ The hiring cost of a new employee: advertising, interviewing, screening, and hiring
✓ The onboarding cost of the new hire, which accounts for training and management time
✓ Lost productivity as the new employee may take months or years to reach the productivity level of the previous worker who held that position
✓ Lost engagement of other employees because of the high turnover

Experienced in this domain, we believe that one of the best ways to combat a high employee turnover rate is to cultivate a leadership style that strives for employee engagement. Employee engagement is one of the most important reasons for an unmotivated and disengaged staff, often due to ineffective leadership. To lower employee turnover and increase their engagement so your teams deliver their best, here are vital leadership skills.

Build Trust

One of the core ingredients of employee engagement is trust. This is a two-way street. If you trust them, they will charge you. That’s right; to build their trust in you, you need to trust by believing in your team. This can be accomplished by delegating responsibilities and assigning challenging tasks with the power to make decisions as and when needed. Not only will this keep employees engaged, but they will feel more connected to, empowered, and enthusiastic about the work and tasks they must complete. This will further improve employee engagement and productivity and add to their professional growth. And when you trust your team to do their best, they will do everything they can to prove their mettle.

Mentor

Employees are likely to stay longer if you provide opportunities to excel and grow. Studies show that employees with professional development opportunities are 15 percent more engaged and have a 34 percent higher retention.

Therefore, leaders must focus on mentoring their teams. Mentoring helps you provide quality feedback to your employees while discussing professional growth and development needs. It likewise enables you to give and receive feedback, and coach and counsel individual employees for improved employee engagement and commitment.

Encourage a Collaborative and Diverse Work Environment

Things can get tedious and redundant if you have the same type of people from the organization’s top to bottom. As everyone thinks alike, sooner or later you’ll notice a lack of motivation in employees and low organizational growth. As such, leaders must focus on inclusion. It is one of the skills to increase employee engagement and spark worker interest.

Inclusion or workplace diversity can positively impact the company. When you encourage workplace diversity, you are indirectly providing a platform for people of different strengths, ideas, understanding, and backgrounds to work in synergy while developing innovative ideas that add value to the business and its performance.

Moreover, such an environment fosters a culture of appreciation and growth. Teams that celebrate and embrace diversity progress faster as they are more willing to learn from each other and accept new ideas. This helps employees stay connected and engaged. People of different backgrounds, ages, gender, and sexual orientation learn to work in conformity, thus achieving new organizational milestones. They realize that team members with diverse personal values can work effectively together to commit to the same values about trustworthiness and work performance standards.

Shared Purpose and Vision

To keep your employees engaged, try to lead them with a shared vision and purpose. In other words, introduce a shared way of doing things. This will inspire passion to deliver products and services that exceed expectations. Engaged employees want to come to work and give 110 percent, so they are likely to perform with above-average performance standards.

To ensure this, you, the leader, will have to be explicit. Explicitness is about specifying in unambiguous, clear, and behavioral terms what is needed for successful operation and what is regarded as poor performance. Being explicit means that you are clear about the vision and purpose. You must clearly define the goals, the rules of working together as a team, and what every team member is expected to do to reach the purpose.

Try to make the purpose compelling by using words that make emotional connections. Make sure to help others see how you get from point A to point B, including daily tasks and projects that need to be accomplished. Put simply, a compelling and emotionally connecting vision for the future is a must. This helps the team engage and move in the same direction with complete synergy and positive energy.

If you need more information or training on employee engagement, reach out to us. Let our team guide you on excellent practices and leadership skills you need to focus on that ensure employee engagement and achieves the desired goals while lowering the turnover rate. Contact us today at danhoustonassociates.com, (704) 750-9670, or email melanie@danhoustonassociates.com to schedule a consultation.