November 28, 2023
For this, most recent, installment in our series of insights in to the Australian employment market we wanted to give our perception of why employees remain loyal to their current employer.
There is a lot of research on employees staying loyal and plenty of articles (particularly from the US and Europe) which address this more scientifically. However, these ideas come entirely from the Talent Web team and relate to our experience in the Australian market which – for a number of our consultants – stretches back nearly 20 years.
So – without further ado – this is what you need to know to help engender loyalty from your current team (or those that you want to keep at least!!)
1. Make an effort to ask about them as people. Ask about more than what they are doing to help you achieve your goals. Be friendly even if you don’t really care all that much.
2. They will stay loyal because you are genuine and you don’t resort to quoting your MBA degree at every opportunity.
3. They will stay because you don’t take credit for their work (in fact if you give them credit for your work, all the better!)
4. They don’t care about the ping pong table in the corner – they want to feel that they have developed skills this week that they didn’t have last week.
5. Knock gossip on the head and get people to talk about issues immediately. Festering antagonism starts to draw other people in to it’s web and cause more damage than you know.
6. Encourage cross-functional teams that don’t usually work together to collaborate. Silos are damaging from both a cultural and an economic perspective but importantly working together creates understanding and harmony.
7. Stick up for them – sometimes even when they are wrong. People need to know you back them through thick and thin. When they are wrong, be honest and talk it through with them over a glass of wine….out of earshot of anyone else.
8. Do some fun things. Make people smile and don’t take yourself too seriously.
9. Stop worrying about what other companies are doing and trying to mimic what you perceive other places to be doing. Be genuine about who you are and what you (as a business) stand for and the right people will stick around.
10. Don’t be beholden to unpleasant, disruptive influencers who are affecting their team mates. Regardless of how good they are they are not making the people around them want to stay loyal to the business.
