As a business leader, you are responsible for establishing, promoting and embracing your organization’s culture.
In business, it is often said that people do not leave organizations, they leave their bosses. People leave jobs they find fulfilling because they no longer trust, or have faith, in the company’s leadership. Betterworks’ research on unhappy employees says the quit rate in this scenario is more than 57%, and keep in mind that “leadership” may be the person to which an employee directly reports, or the organization’s top leaders or founder.
I became curious about what defines an unhappy employee, and not surprisingly it can be caused by external or internal circumstances. External factors are those outside of the employee’s control, including not being accepted by co-workers, communication issues, the job is uninteresting or not what was promised, and the required skill level is either too high or too low, and so forth. Internal factors are those over which the employee does has control, such as getting along with others, having a negative attitude, not learning about the job requirements, not seeking training for the areas needing improvement, not having a strong desire to do the work and do it well, etc.
Getting along with others is both an external and internal indicator of employee happiness. It is the responsibility of leaders to focus on building a sense of community that underpins everything you do. Below are a few ways team leaders can create a sense of community:
- Identify and promote shared team values
- Align team goals to the organization’s vision and goals
- Follow a decision-making process that results in both efficiency and effectiveness
- Conduct creativity sessions with a purpose
- Be congruent with words and actions
A team leader is a strong influencer and in the best position to shift an unhappy employee into a happy and successful employee. Think of this as a gift and an opportunity. It all starts with the leader’s positive attitude. Team effectiveness makes or breaks an organization. Employees are on the battlefront responsible for carrying out leadership directives, and when you lose an employee, everyone suffers. While production and performance goals are keys to profitability, building a sense of team community is just as important.
The above ideas scratch the surface of opportunities that will build a sense of community for teams in an organization. So, what do you think about curbing the employee quit rate?