They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Carl W. Buechner
Cell Phones.
Text messaging
Emails
Conference calls
What’s missing in today’s tech world? Genuine conversations.
Why employees leave? (From the book 7 hidden reasons employees leave)
Reason #5 Feeling Devalued and Unrecognized
When you care for someone you spend time with them. You can’t develop relationships sitting at a desk, sending emails, sending text messages or looking at spreadsheets all day, just like you can’t create a good friendship sitting around watching TV and not saying a word to each other.
However, I have heard many times where an employee feels more like a number on a spreadsheet than a person who brings value to an organization. Honestly, this doesn’t make anyone feel good. If you want to increase your sales, improve your customer service experience help people feel good about themselves and they will produce better results.
So how do you engage people and give them reasons to feel valued and recognized?
- Get to know your team– meet with them individually, what are their goals, passions, hobbies. For example. Ask them questions to why they chose to work at your company. Find out their purpose for doing what they do. If they could make the company better, how would they?
- Be present in your conversations– This is HUGE! If you are having a phone call with a staff member. Close your email programs, put your phone on silent. Truly listen. Don’t wait just to talk or to be Mr/Ms fixit. Be engaged in the moment with the employee. You and your staff member will feel the difference and become more connected. It also shows that you care about what they have to say.
- Notice that they are as teammate on your staff– This isn’t just giving them some big plaque or award. Recognize them as a person as much as a professional. For example send out handwritten birthday cards with an actual pen and paper.
- Give people room to grow– Every company would be perfect but then you add people! When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. In my experiences having these genuine conversations before you have to have the uncomfortable conversations will lead to more trust vs animosity.
Finally, let’s go old school for a moment and put aside technology and ask how ourselves how can we show others how we value them without only using email, text messages or conference calls? It may actually make your relationships with your teams more genuine!
I invite you to comment, like, and share.
Tony Jalan
Developing Leaders
Empower, Equip,Encourage,Educate