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Good team communication is an excellent way to improve your retention rates. By listening to your staff, you increase engagement and foster a deeper relationship with your employees. They feel more connected to their jobs, improving both retention and team performance.

It’s important to keep your key employees in place. Poor employee retention rates can become an expensive problem. Even entry-level positions can cost thousands of dollars to replace. Beyond raising recruitment costs, ineffective retention policies hurt morale and make it difficult to maintain meaningful forward momentum.

It’s clear that boosting retention helps the bottom line and improves team relations. But how do you accomplish this goal? The simple act of listening provides a good starting point.

Improve Engagement

You get more out of your workers when they are engaged in the process. One study from Gallup showed a 21% improvement in profitability for teams that were highly engaged. More than just helping your team thrive in the moment, though, engagement helps keep your workers in place longer.

Listening to your team makes them feel like part of the action. They are participants in your success, rather than just hired hands. Your employees feel more invested in the process and are less likely to start looking for other opportunities.

Building Relationships

Listening also builds a stronger team atmosphere. By fostering communication, you build connections between you and your team. At the same time, you encourage better comradery among your workers.

This strategy leads to better outcomes, higher levels of innovation, and a more vibrant team dynamic. It also plays into higher retention rates. Your employees develop a real connection with the people around them and, by extension, with the company itself.

Tips for Listening to Your Employees

Hopefully, you’re convinced that listening to your team can improve retention (and give a boost to your overall productivity in the process). But now that you’ve committed to better communication, how do you make that possible? What concrete steps can you take to foster a better two-way discourse?

Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Encourage Feedback

Create an atmosphere where feedback is welcomed and rewarded. Constantly remind your workers that you want to hear their ideas. When they approach you, respond with enthusiasm and an open mind.

Check-in Frequently

Don’t just wait for your employees to come to you. Seek out feedback. Schedule regular one-on-one discussions with your key team members. As part of these meetings, require them to bring in a set of new ideas. This process will help jumpstart conversations and encourage innovative thinking. At the same time, they will feel valued, making them more likely to stick with you for the long haul.

Form a Real Connection

Sometimes the barrier to communication is social. Even if you don’t mean to be, you might strike your workers as intimidating. (Don’t take it personally…bosses are naturally intimidating.) Avoid this emotional dynamic. Make an effort to form a personal connection with members of your team. Take time to learn about them and attempt to form a real emotional bond. This will open up the lines of communication and make the exchange of ideas easier.

Listening to your employees will help you boost retention rates and improve your overall teamwork. If you’re looking for other ways to keep top talent for the long haul and build the best team possible, consider partnering with a top-flight staffing agency, like PrideStaff. They can bring you the best candidates for your open positions and give you strategies for both recruitment and retention.

Contact PrideStaff today to learn more.

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