A must-read book for all managers is entitled: Love ‘em or Lose ‘em: getting good people to stay. The authors detail in their book 26 different strategies (from A to Z) that managers can use to get people to stay motivated and engaged. All at no cost! The book begins with the primary strategy: ASK: What keeps you?
And of course, asking is the necessary first step. How can we keep people engaged, if we don’t know what is important to them? Certainly, many factors are similar for many people. Factors like exciting work, a challenge, learning and development, working with great people and a good boss. But just as each person is unique, so are each person’s needs and motivation. So, to be a good boss, you certainly must ask.
However, getting good people to stay engaged just doesn’t happen because you ask. Getting good people to stay requires listening to their answer and taking action on what you hear.
For about 15 years of my career, I was responsible for the global employee opinion survey for two different fortune 50 companies. Do you know what the hardest part of my job was? Trying to get senior management to actually do something based on the survey results. They read the survey results. They asked me to cut the data 20 different ways until analysis-paralysis set in. But getting them to actually act on the information? Not so easy.
One year the CEO asked me to come explain why the survey results had been declining over the past few years. Easiest presentation I ever did. With a marker I drew a 3-part cycle on a flipchart. ASK leads to LISTEN leads to ACT which returns to ask. In the middle of the circle I wrote the word TRUST.
I went on to explain. You either create a virtuous cycle where trust is built because you keep the promise you made to people when you asked them for their opinion, through listening to and acting on the feedback. Or the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket because you keep breaking your promise through asking, asking, asking and never listening and acting. The cycle becomes vicious because your lack of action indicates you did not like what you heard.
Did I get fired? No. Did they change their behavior? No. Did I ever administer a global opinion survey for them again? Nope. That trust bank account was empty!
The moral of this story. If you want to keep people engaged, absolutely you must ASK and then you must LISTEN and ACT. Read Love ‘em or Lose ‘em. Each chapter has lot of easy ideas you could implement based on what you hear.