June 22, 2016

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What-Employees-Want-From-Their-Bosses

After having spent years discussing indicators for lack of engagement at work with dissatisfied clients, and obtaining valuable firsthand knowledge of factors for employee engagement and motivation I moved into Leadership Coaching to have greater impact.

This knowledge along with my prior experience helping teams work together, and my on-going learning has served me well for my current work empowering leaders.

What Employee’s really want:

  1. A leader that knows them uniquely and is interested in them.  Be “interested rather than interesting”.
  2. Stretching assignments and projects. Employees want to obtain mastery and be challenged. This is so important to avoid boredom and poor performance.
  3. A leader that is a mentor. Everyone wants guidance to move forward to the next step in their career journey.
  4. Autonomy NOT micro-management. Employees want a supportive approachable leader that is available if they need help, yet leaves them to come up with their own approach to doing something.
  5. Clear expectations. Employees want to know what is expected of them.
  6. Time sensitive feedback. So many times I have heard “tell me at the time so that I can do something about it. The yearly review is too late!”.
  7. Most people will trade something for increased flexibility.
  8. A purpose and higher meaning. If employees do not see the ‘way’ they are less likely to feel motivated to do something.
  9. It is so affirming to hear, “You did a great job there”. For added value, make the praise more specific.
  10. Fun and friendships at work. Maybe this should be the first point. Employees will stay for this reason alone. I did.

PS Did I mention reward and money? Make sure they are adequately reimbursed for their service. This is a basic starting point.