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FAST
FORWARD
66 •
PPB
• JUNE 2016
THINK
WATER COOLER
Keep Your Friends Close…
And Your Employees Closer
1
Train your management.
If you’re at the top of the
pyramid, with managers supervising employees all the
way down to the bottom, it’s up to you to make sure
the leaders in your organization are equipped to foster a
growth-sensitive environment. Make sure managers know
what motivates their team and are setting realistic goals for
individual and group work.
2
Facilitate Growth Through Challenges.
You’ve
surely heard the phrase, “Do what you love and you’ll
never work a day in your life.” For many employees,
passion for their work is the driving force behind having and
keeping a job, not the salary that comes with it. Help estab-
lish a work environment that pushes your team to develop
and improve their professional skills. Ask individual employ-
ees what excites them the most, and what you can do to
help facilitate growth.
3
Provide Feedback.
Whether it’s weekly, monthly,
biannually or even after every completed project,
feedback that is constructive and applicable is invalu-
able to employee growth and retention. Let employees know
when they’ve done well, but also let them know where and
how they can improve the quality of their work as well as the
quality of their working relationships with you and other
team members.
4
Show Them What Lies Ahead.
Employees with a
considerable number of working years ahead of them
want to know what those years will hold. If there’s a
way for an employee to move up in your organization, or for
them to branch out laterally and carve out a niche elsewhere
in the company, show them how they can do so.
DON’T FREAK OUT, MANAGERS, but half your
employees may be thinking of leaving. At least, that’s
what a Gallup study estimated about the nation’s work-
force as recently as January. To keep employees satisfied
with their current position and improve retention in
your company, the folks at Marketing Innovators
encourage you to employ these four strategies:
By Jen Alexander