Before we get to today’s topic, I must mention that today is our anniversary. Mike and I have been married 27 years! We are celebrating our anniversary, along with Kirby of course, by spending a week in Ontario, Canada, visiting Bayfield, ON, driving along the lake to the Blue Mountains, and then into Toronto. We look forward to the quality time together disconnecting from work and connecting with each other, as well as visiting a few special friends and colleagues in Canada. Happy anniversary, Mike, and all my love to you!

In last week’s blog post, I shared that enhancing your company’s performance feedback system is one of the best ways to engage employees  and keep them motivated. Today, I want to dive deeper into that topic because it’s an area where a lot of innovation is happening that can improve employee satisfaction.

And because of the low unemployment rate in the job market, this is a good time to think about what keeps employees happy . You cannot afford to lose great employees these days. Did you know that the average new hire costs a company $4,000 more than keeping a current employee?

The Future of Human Resources

IBM is using fascinating new technology to gauge whether potential hires or current employees are likely flight risks, or in other words, if they might leave a job too soon. They’re putting artificial intelligence (AI) to work to look at data about employee satisfaction, and predicting with 95% accuracy which employees will soon quit their jobs.

It turns out that traditional methods of evaluating employee satisfaction are far less accurate than many human resources professionals believed. Manager surveys are particularly inaccurate at assessing employees’ skills and assets.

Annual performance reviews also are a bad indicator of on-the-job satisfaction. In fact, IBM has stopped using them after being convinced by their own data. Managers now provide quarterly feedback for all employees, which has led to increased employee engagement in addition to better gauging which employees are flight risks.

They are also using AI in the performance feedback process. Data helps identify areas where employees need to increase their skills and IBM provides opportunities to do so. And they offer potential promotion opportunities by using AI to identify internal candidates.

How to Keep Your Employees Engaged

While your business might not have access or resources to devote to AI, there are tried and true reasons why employees leave jobs that you can avoid. Let’s run through them and what you can do to prevent losing a great employee to one of these problems.

Red Tape

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that we dislike red tape, and it can frustrate employees to the point of leaving an employer. If constraints are placed on your team members that make them powerless to do their jobs, it’s your responsibility as a leader to streamline systems to cut through the inefficiencies.

Boredom

If your employees are not feeling challenged enough, they lose motivation, become less engaged, and are more likely to leave, seeking new and more interesting opportunities. Check to see if their current workloads match up to the jobs they were hired for, and if not, come up with a plan with them to assign more meaningful, challenging responsibilities.

Competing Goals

One on-the-job stressor that few leaders consider is when one expectation, like efficiency for instance, competes with another, like customer service. If employees don’t know which expectation should prevail, they are likely to feel frustrated and make the wrong call. Make it clear to your team members which priorities or goals come first, so that when they face a predicament, they’ll choose the right outcome confidently.

A Hostile Environment

If team members feel unsafe speaking up, taking risks, or let their guards down, they will not last long in their jobs. Trust and safety are important qualities in professional relationships, just as they are in personal relationships. Make sure your team knows there are no wrong answers, and that mistakes are a part of the process. Show humility with your team, asking for feedback and sharing your faults.

Burn Out

This last one affects so many dedicated hard workers, exactly the kind you want to attract and keep. As a leader, it’s your job to create an environment that prevents burnout, because if you fail to deliver adequate resources, you’re setting team members up to fail. Talk to them about their workloads regularly, and give them what they need to do great work.

If you feel burned out as a business owner, manager, or leader, it’s important to the sustainability of your company that you seek support that can lighten your load. That’s one of the challenges that I work with many of my Celeste Giordano Coaching clients on. If you’re at your wit’s end and you don’t know how to make your job enjoyable again, contact me today.

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Celeste Giordano’s mission is to help business owners develop the skills, knowledge and attitude necessary to “DoublePlus^TM” their income and become effective and inspirational leaders in their fields. Whether it’s taking your successful business to the next level or starting a new venture, she will teach you the exact skills and strategies you need to enroll more quality prospects, build a rock-solid team, and break through obstacles to achieve real profit and lasting success. Celeste is a professional business growth specialist, a master sales strategist, and dynamic speaker with 40 years experience in direct sales and managing high-performing teams.

To learn more about Celeste, click here.

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At Celeste Giordano Coaching, I work with each client to implement the strategies they’ve been missing that will enable them to break through barriers preventing them from the success they know they are capable of. Contact me today to find your future clients who just don’t know what they’re missing.