By: Tom Bloomer
It may be hard to imagine after the crazy year that was 2020, but your best employee talent is about to leave. What is not hard to imagine is that overall employee satisfaction is at all-time lows. SMB owners and leaders must take responsibility now to keep their talent at home. 2020 was not your fault but losing key talent in 2021 will be.
This does not mean you are destined to lose all your top talent. It simply means you need to be doing the important things now with your team. A few key steps can make all the difference.
Stay in touch
Communication is essential in any time of crisis. You may not have all the answers. But your team needs to hear from you now, more than ever. Top talent is often overlooked because they have always been so self-sufficient. Today, they are now potentially your most vulnerable. Getting out there and communicating every day is now job #1.
Share the pain
Your team is probably going through a lot of pain right now. Beyond even job performance concerns, every team member has untold personal crisis weighing on their mind. They need to count on you as a leader. You need to share their pain. You need to show them you are right there with them. You do that by doing things you weren’t doing in the past. You don’t share the pain through talk. You share the pain through actions. You might normally not be in the weeds with your team, but now is a good time to get your hands dirty. Spend time working with them in the trenches. You may not have all the answers for them, but they will know they’re working with a leader who cares about what they’re experiencing.
Align with your team
Empower your team to bring ideas. Spend time aligning the path you need to be on as a business with the path they need to be on to envision their future as a part of your business. Being aligned with your team is only successful when they feel and see the alignment. Want to keep them when things open? Have them aligned today.
Encourage creativity
Want to reduce stress on your team? Let loose their creativity. We all struggle when problems are out of our control. Find ways to give your team activities they can control. Work with them on ways they can personally grow and develop. Empower them to seek new avenues to drive traffic, drive sales, increase their future commissions. Invest in your employees reinventing themselves and even their roles. Let them find new ways to engage with their prospects, and
Keeping the talent, you are about to lose customers so that everyone feels aligned and creative together. Your top talent wants to achieve, find ways to let them.
Understand it is about a lot more than compensation
Just as we learned through the 2008/’09 recession. The SMB world and today’s labor market has been changed forever. When things begin to open, top talent will not be swayed by money alone. As most SMB’s learned back then, employees have now seen firsthand how quickly compensation and security can vanish. Talent will stay where they feel they belong. Where they feel appreciated and a strong part of the future of that business.
Finally, inspire your team to water their grass
We all know the grass always looks greener across the street. Truth is that the grass is greener where it is watered. Inspire this understanding in your team. Help them to water their grass and let them see the grass is greener working with you moving forward. If you do not open their eyes it will always look greener across the street. Begin to help them water it at home.
Talent voids are being created in today’s labor market in every region and industry. Shortly these voids are going to be filled. Take steps today to ensure it is not your talent that fills them.
