There’s no simple way to ensure employee loyalty, but that’s precisely why it’s so crucial to try. It will require commitment and honesty.
While the financial benefits of improving employee loyalty are evident (turnover costs firms over $1 trillion annually), the cultural and organizational advantages shouldn’t be neglected.
Teams that are devoted to your company have higher levels of productivity, synergy, and overall happiness. You and your company will reap the rewards for many quarters to come if you put in the effort today to inspire loyalty.
1. Cultivating loyalty means paying on time and in full.
Although it may seem self-evident, payroll troubles are common and can cause severe rifts between employees and companies.
They pose a serious threat to loyalty. The majority of American workers have dealt with a paycheck issue. Whether it was a salary that was too small or one that was days late.
If your company has run into this problem, try automating the process to eliminate the risk of errors and save you and your team time. For example, Gusto discovered that 74% of small business payroll software users do their payroll in 10 minutes or less. The faster and more precisely your employees are paid, the more they will trust you as a leader.
2. Applaud a job well done.
It’s critical to keep loyal employees motivated in order to foster a culture of loyalty, but motivation can be difficult to come by during times like these. Many employees have felt lost and unappreciated as a result of Covid-19. Roughly a third of staff received no appreciation for their work in the last three months.
If one of your colleagues looks up to you as a leader, it’s likely that they value your praise and comments as well. The basis of a working employee-employer relationship is recognition and honest assessments. You’ll be rewarded with a noticeable increase in employee loyalty.
3. Create a sliding scale for worker loyalty and autonomy.
Micromanagement is a solid symptom of upper management’s lack of trust, and no one likes it. It’s no surprise that approximately 70% of all employees who have been subjected to micromanagement have pondered resigning.
Adopt a transparent approach toward worker loyalty and autonomy. The more they demonstrate that they are capable of handling freedom, the more freedom you’ll grant.
Allow individuals participating in a project to have a greater voice in the direction it takes. It’s your responsibility as a leader to monitor business operations. But you must understand where your obligations end and those of your employees begin. Loyalty begins when you and your team both understand where that line is drawn.
4. Take care of any work culture issues as soon as possible.
No one wants a manager who simply pays the bills. They want someone who can actively contribute to maintaining the workplace happy and healthy.
You owe it to your team to detect and resolve any issues that occur in your company’s culture. Many employees have grown to expect it from a leader. Maintaining an active loyal relationship with each member of your team is the best way to go about doing this.
Regularly check in on casual terms. Once you’ve formed a solid connection with everyone, you’ll be able to see whether there are any significant difficulties afoot. Some cultural challenges necessitate top-down action, and the sooner you address them, the more your team will value your efforts.
5. Be loyal to yourself.
As Shakespeare said, “To thine own self be true.” In CEO terms, that means to be loyal to yourself. To know what your standards are, and to uphold them always. Not just when things are going your way.
When employees see that your resolve to treat them fairly is not just a ploy to keep them from quitting or to squeeze more work out of them, they will respond with the kind of loyalty that money cannot buy.
Top management can never escape fully from the view of those who work with them on teams or individually. Just like children, they know when you’re faking it. Learn to genuinely value yourself and your employees will learn to value you as well. This should be self-evident.
Employee loyalty is something you acquire and then sustain, not something you achieve. Each of these five takeaways is part of a wider strategy: trust your team and let them trust you. Once you realize this, loyalty becomes second nature.
