How to Reconnect Dissatisfied Employees

Your best employee knocks on your office door and submits his resignation. What’s the first thing you’re going to do? A common workaround is to give them higher salaries, better perks to retain them. But 6 months later, you might hear another knock on the door — and it’s happening again.

In 2021 and 2022, employees applied for leave en masse, in some cases even applying for leave from time to time despite not having another job. The numbers are particularly alarming among employees aged 30 to 45, where the average resignation rate in 2021 was 20% higher than in 2020.

But the problem is not limited to this age group or pandemic dissatisfaction. When we surveyed more than 5,600 people from different industries between January 2019 and December 2021, we found that worker dissatisfaction began at age 25 – and has existed since before our world was turned upside down.

If managers want to retain employees, money is a temporary solution. The data shows that only 38.2% of employees aged 25 to 45 cited salary as the most important factor in job satisfaction – although we found that this was the most common response by management when receiving information about an employee leaving.

More than anything, these employees tell us they aspire to do work that inspires them and creates harmony between who they are and what they do. This makes them more engaged with the company, more productive, and more loyal. They want to feel like they’re working for something more meaningful than themselves—and understand how their day job can help that meaningful thing happen—with the initiative in shaping their role in that story.

Leaders interested in re-engaging employees may consider giving them more of what they need and want — connection, inspiration, self-determination, and insight into their inner needs — not just more money. Here are four ways to do it.

Aim for work-life alignment, not work-life balance

Employees between the ages of 25 and 45 are at their fastest stage of career development, and this is also a period when they quickly take on more personal responsibilities. It’s hard to achieve work-life balance when you’re married, have children, care for aging parents, attend networking events and professional development conferences, and serve on communities, nonprofits, or school boards.

Instead of looking for work-life balance, these employees are looking for work-life alignment. This is not just about the time they spend at work, but also about how this work increases or decreases the time that they spend on it.

For example, we found that 65% of the people we interviewed wanted more control over the team they were assigned to, the projects they took on, and their ability to impact their earning hours through side jobs. While many expect that workers will gain more control when promoted, in reality the opposite is true for women in particular, causing them to leave the workforce in higher numbers than male employees with similar cases.

Always ask your employees how the day-to-day job allows them to achieve the career advancement they seek, raise a family, or demonstrate their values on a daily basis so you can work together and identify their pains.

Find out what motivates them – and together reshape their work

In the survey, the biggest gap was in employees’ relationships with their leaders. Almost all employees say they want to work for a leader who inspires them, but only 36% of them are actually doing it. Investing in relationships with your employees is one way to bridge that gap — and motivate employees.

To understand what motivates an employee, ask what brought them to this job — cause, team, organization, or salary — and whether that still energizes them. Be open to answers. What you hear may be surprising, exciting, or confusing, but it will help you understand your team better. As you learn more, you can assign employees to projects that are meaningful to them and reshape their daily, weekly, and quarterly goals accordingly. You’ll also gain insight into what inspires them so you can help them navigate the company’s work and meet their individual needs in the future.

Fostering support will increase team cohesion.
Fostering support will increase team cohesion.

Engagement from the recruitment process

For many employees, hiring as something that happens “with” them and their team, not “for” them, makes them feel less engaged, less influential, and less important. Not only does hiring provide an opportunity to bring in new talent and perspectives, it can also provide space to engage current key employees to spark excitement to shine again.

For example, instead of simply posting an old job description for a role that is currently vacant, managers should take a moment to talk to employees about whether the job description is still relevant. Ask the employee’s help in improving that job description.

This process has both external and internal benefits. Job descriptions are not only read by candidates, but are often secretly reviewed by current employees. A great job description will connect the responsibilities of that position to the purpose of the organization. Reading it will help current employees rekindle the joy and excitement that brought them to the original organization, reminding them of how day-to-day work contributes value to the overall picture of the company.

Connect employee work to the big picture

In the survey, only about half of employees between the ages of 25 and 45 felt they could connect day-to-day tasks to demands that were strategic or significant. Nearly all of the 5,600 people interviewed (92.4%) reported that they performed better when they saw how important the quality of their work was to the big picture.

Engage employees in every activity of the organization
Engage employees in every activity of the organization

Consider your role in this process. Instead of simply communicating your organization’s commands, learn how you can help each team member wondering, “How does this affect me?” understand the connections between seemingly disjointed things. irrelevant. Help them see the alignment between their daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly work and the company’s overall long-term goals.

Instead of standing by and watching your best employees consider resigning, offer them a new and more attractive avenue. By giving people more agency, re-engaging them with the company, and once again inspiring them, you can create a work environment that helps them feel like the best version of themselves. When this happens, they will again enthusiastically dedicate themselves to their organization and build their team.

Instead of knocking on the door to announce their resignation, they will be there with dedication, dedication, and positive energy.

Source: https://hbr.org/2022/05/how-to-re-engage-a-dissatisfied-employee?registration=success

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