Communication Tops the List of Ways to Retain Great Employees

The most commonly known causes of employee turnover are typically poor communications by management and favoritism. Year after year these rarely change.
In response to this issue we beg companies to focus on the communication styles of your management staff. If you consider the investment made in each hire your company makes and then take those dollars and put them in the hands of incompetent managers, what exactly do you expect your return to be?

Communications is so broad of an area however it really requires just a few skills to become expert at it. Those skills are:
Listening– if your employee has something to say it should be heard. And not just heard, but truly listened to. Although the answer the employee receives might not always be in their favor, they need to know that their feelings are being considered. If your managers are simply going through the motions then you can be assured that problems will definitely follow.
Empathy– yes some employees can never be satisfied, but for the most part this is not the case…..if it is….you need to examine your hiring practices. People not only need to be heard, they need to know you care, and I do not mean nor do I recommend parenting your employee. The message is to put yourself in their shoes and try to understand their frustrations or fears. Then speak to those issues in a manner that shows you understand. If a manager attempts to “fake” empathy, it will be transparent. Although I do believe empathy can be learned if a manager has some level of compassion. If not ….this should be a warning sign regarding this manager.
Honesty– share what is happening as much as is permissible. Employees that feel that they have been “lied” to, or kept in the dark, will have a difficult time recovering from this. However when a company shares information, again as much as it is able, the strongest and most engaged employees, those employees that you are trying to keep, will likely step up to the plate and help to support the company in their time of need.
Guest post by Tina Hamilton of hireVisionGroup, Inc.

Originally posted by Candice A