This week has been a wild week.
• We completed our federal taxes.
• I spoke at a conference in Chicago.
• We closed on a $13 million loan.
Nearly every minute of my day is scheduled. The pace of things that come across my desk is mind numbing sometimes.
With all of that said, our leadership team met to talk about employee engagement. Some of the feedback I personally got was great to hear but also hard to hear. The primary feedback was that I need to spend more time connecting with our staff.
It’s challenging because of the volume of things and people who require my attention. Regardless, the feedback is right. So, we have started to make a few tweaks. Here are a couple of those tweaks:
Haunted Hay Ride
One staff member had a unique idea to invite everyone to a haunted hay ride. So, we did! We had never tried this before, so I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. But we had a great turnout and it was so much fun. The best part was seeing the employees build stronger connections with each other through the shared experience. The interesting challenge is how to encourage the staff to build deeper connections with people they don’t know as well. But, sincerely, this was one of the most fun events we have ever done. It was really great getting to connect with our staff on a different level.
BBQ Lunches & Gifts
We are going to do a few more lunches. This week one of the divisions of our company will be doing lunch. We will be catering barbeque food from a local delicious restaurant. Then, we’ll be giving out a neat gift to our staff as another way to say thank you. My goal will be to further connect with our staff. I hope it builds a greater level of trust.
Truly Caring
I think an important piece to supporting employees is understanding their problems and then to care about helping to solve them. Sometimes that can be by helping solve issues at work. For example, maybe an employee is overwhelmed. So together you look for the key pain points and work at reducing or eliminating those pain points. Sometimes helping them means hearing about personal issues. There are times when a well-timed offer of help can go a long way to improving an employee’s life.
Employer Loyalty
Normally leaders talk about employee loyalty. But I think we should turn that conversation around. Instead, we should ask how our employers can be more loyal and supportive of their staff. Truly supporting your staff goes a long way to building loyalty with them.
Join a Community
We are working on building a community of people who care about great leadership. If you want to learn more about upcoming events, consider subscribing to my newsletter by visiting the following link: https://mailchi.mp/add7f6bb7048/n