Relationships can make or break your business. Employees need to feel connected to both the business itself and the person or people they work for. Glenn Llopis, author, shares in his book excerpt with Entrepreneur:
“The wealth created through authentic business relationships stimulates growth and innovation, advances commerce and benefits all. Relationships sustain more than momentum — they create and sustain relevancy. But these high-level relationships take time to cultivate.”
The question is: how do you build these relationships? There are many ways of achieving this goal, but right now we’re looking at a few data-based ideas. Find out what your employees want and what makes them tick, and you’ll find the answers you’re searching for.
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Give More Feedback
Your employees want Feedback, yet. According to OfficeVibe’s 2018 State of Employee Engagement, 96 percent of employees said getting regular feedback is a good thing. However, the same survey found that 63 percent of employees feel they don’t get enough praise and 32 percent have to wait more than three months to get feedback from their managers.
This a quick and easy way to build better relationships with your employees. It gives you a chance to give them the personal insights they want while connecting 1-on-1 on a more regular basis.
When you’re giving feedback, remember that there are two kinds, suggests Francis Bryers, in Feedback: How Teams Learn Fast: appreciative and formative. Bryers explains that feedback is often formative, rather than appreciative, but finding a balance between the two is key:
“Another reason I think appreciative feedback is so important is that feedback is like a bank account. Every time I give you formative feedback, I draw on our relational capital. Every time I give you appreciative feedback, I invest in our relationship. It is not quite that transactional, of course, but it is a fair metaphor.”
Finding that balance also ensures that your employees aren’t always hearing negative or critical feedback, but being recognized of their successes as well.
Build a better relationship: Maintain at least a 1:1 ratio of appreciative to formative feedback. For example, every time you give one piece of formative — critical — feedback, give one piece of appreciative feedback as well. Make a point to have one 1-to-1 sit down each month if it’s hard for you to remember to give feedback on the fly.
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Prioritize Their Happiness
Being productive, meeting deadlines, and staying on track are all critical for the success of your business — but so are happy employees. Yet, 29 percent of employees don’t feel happy at work, according to the same 2018 OfficeVibe report. You may be thinking: well, we don’t have the budget for raises. That’s okay. You don’t need to give a bump in salary to make them happy and build a better relationship.
Instead, take a page from Harvard Business Review, who surveys their employees twice a year. Their February 2018 survey revealed that employees want three things:
- Career: Autonomy, ability to use their strengths, access to learning and development.
- Community: Feeling respected and cared about and being recognized.
- Cause: Feeling that they’re making an impact and being connected with the organization’s mission.
There are so many ways you can highlight these areas, showing your employees that you care about them, and therefore building better relationships.
Build a better relationship: Volunteer twice each year as a team — you included — with a local organization. Be present in trainings to simply watch or jump into the conversation. Praise employees after a great presentation. All of these seemingly small details bring you closer to your employees because you’re showing them: you work hard for us and we work hard for you, and better yet: I’m seeing you and appreciate what you do.
Make Yourself More Available
It can be easy, as a leader or manager, to be tucked away in your office all day — or more likely, running from one meeting to the next. Being unavailable, however, makes it hard for you to build a better relationship with your employees.
The good news is: the more available you are, the more likely millennial employees — who now make up more than 50 percent of the workforce — are to stay. Gallup’s How Millennials Want to Work and Live found that 61 percent of millennials who feel they can talk to their managers about anything expect to be with their same employer in a year.
Build a better relationship: If you have a busy schedule, set office hours and block them out on your calendar so no one can book you for a meeting or call. Let employees know this is the best time to get your undivided attention for anything they need, from help on a project to advise about how to approach a coworker.
Don’t be a “Manager”
The term “manager” may put you in a certain box that makes it hard for employees to connect with. Mike Ambassador Bruny, of No More Reasonable Doubt, tells Forbes to remove this label: “Let your people know that you are a person first and a manager second. Act accordingly. Focus on the human being that is in front of you, get to know them and look for opportunities to say ‘yes’ to them more often.”
This doesn’t mean you need to let go of what it means to be a manager — a leader, a confidante, a steady anchor in storms. It simply allows employees to connect with on a 1-to-1 level, which is critical to building and maintaining relationships with them.
Build a better relationship: Bring yourself to your leadership. If you’re a fun person, be fun. If you’re goofy, be goofy. Let your personality shine through, so it’s easy to see that you’re not just a manager you’re, [enter name], who loves basketball and pushes her employees to be better.
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Build Better Relationships
The success of your business relies on many factors and one that’s easy to overlook is having great relationships with your employees. Use these data-based ideas to start building relationships, whether you put a heavy focus on feedback, focus on a cause as a company, or simply remind people that you’re more than just a manager. If you can do this, you may just find your business is thriving more than it ever has before.
Author Bio:
Jessica Thiefels is the CEO of Jessica Thiefels Consulting and has managed both remote and in-house employees in her various roles. She’s been featured on Forbes and Business Insider and regularly writes for Virgin, Glassdoor, Score.org and more. Follow her on Twitter @JessicaThiefels and connect on LinkedIn.
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The Simple Ways to Build Better Relationships With Your Employees was originally published in ProofHub Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
