Relationship – The Foundation to Employee Motivation and Retention

January 27, 2009 by JoAnn Corley
Filed under Employee Motivation

Several years ago, I had the great opportunity to work for a staffing firm in Chicago. As I meet with various candidates for placement and would explore the reason why they were considering living their present employment, one answer became consistent among many. The answer would be, the boss or supervisor. We actually would say that people don’t leave jobs, they leave bosses.

That very saying was confirmed in the HR Newsletter where a survey was conducted to determine the top 3 reasons why someone had left a job. The number one most popular answer was their boss.

Now, this post is not to get down on managers. It is to serve a reality check though the essential to employee motivation and employee retention is the relationship you have with each of your staff members. Consider it the glue that helps to hold an entire team together. But again, it begins with you.

The reality is the person you are on the inside is the kind of manager you’ll be on the outside and how you are on the outside directly impacts the motivation of your employees. Are you ready to OWN this important fact?

I believe at the heart of effective management is the manager’s ability AND WILLINGNESS to see themselves honestly and how they impact the people they manage.

Recommended action:
1. Write out a list of what you consider to be your strengths and weaknesses.
2. Create a plan of what you’d like to work on this next year. (Some of you may already do this with formal performance management plans)
3. Ask your staff to also access you. The formal name for this is a 360 feedback which is a written or electronic survey done anonymously to provide a manager with performance feedback.

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