If you’ve made it to this blog on leadership training, chances are you’ve spent some time with us the last couple of months as we dove into turning The Great Resignation into The Great Retention.
So far, we’ve covered flexibility, DEI, employee growth, pay, employee engagement, and benefits. While each of these is important, when you utilize them together you can truly start cultivating a great workplace and, hopefully, increase retention.
But, what good are these initiatives if the entire company isn’t living up to them? That’s where this final strategy comes in: Leadership Training.
Leadership Buy-In
Your company policies are only as good as the leaders implementing them. Get your leadership team on board, make sure they’re living out your company values, and support them to ensure they get the help they need to lead well.
“Half of workers who quit their jobs say they left because of their managers, according to the results of Gallup’s 2017 State of the Workplace survey.” – SHRM
If you’re putting all this work into company culture, make sure your leaders trickle that down to every employee. The good news is that this should happen with clear communication, transparency, and training!
Clear Communication & Transparency
To get your leaders ready to lead your company initiatives and new policies, it’s up to the company executives and HR to give them the tools they need. Start with clear communication about the initiative and transparency behind the “why.”
“According to a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (pdf), poor communication can lead to low morale, missed performance goals, and even lost sales….But effective communication impacts more than just the bottom line. For leaders, it’s what enables them to rally their team around a shared vision, empower employees, build trust, and successfully navigate organizational change.” –Harvard Business School Online
Clear communication entails multiple steps. First, how is your company communicating to your leaders? This can look different at every company, but make sure it’s happening. Here are some ideas to effectively communicate to your leaders:
- Regular leadership meetings.
- 1-on-1s with executive leaders and the management team.
- Clear processes for announcing company info.
The next step is to ensure that your leaders are clearly and transparently dispensing that info to their direct reports. This may mean your HR team follows up with leaders to ask if they had any questions after talking with their team, or HR sends out a survey to gather feedback and allow all employees to ask questions.
If you start to notice a lot of questions or uncertainty, this may be a sign you need to have a closer look at how info is communicated from leaders to individuals.
Implementing Leadership Training
Effective communication and building great leaders requires training. We’re not talking about one training session; we’re talking about consistent and relevant leadership training.
If you think your company’s training program needs help, it’s probably time to phone a friend. As a Nextep client, your HR Business Partner is your go-to source for help on this. They can direct you to Nextep’s online training resources and talk you through strategies. Here are a few other ideas to get started on training your leaders:
- Survey the leaders to ask what they could use help with. This will tell you where your training is lacking.
- Survey employees to gather anonymous feedback about their experience.
- Consult with a training expert.
- Look at online training platforms. Nextep has one that may work for what you need!
- Keep it up. This is an ongoing process, so be sure you’re not neglecting training.
Start Training Your Leaders Today
Here’s how Nextep ensures we’re cultivating great leaders:
- Open communication — we encourage open communication between all levels of leadership.
- Weekly leadership meetings — our leaders meet at least once a week and are encouraged to share their struggles, ask questions, and get advice from other leaders.
- DISC — we use DISC to help leaders know the best way to communicate with their team as individuals and tailor their approach accordingly. DISC also allows our HR team to help leaders assess their own strengths and potential roadblocks.
If you want to turn The Great Resignation into The Great Retention, put in the time and do the research. The good news is that we’ve compiled a bunch of it here for you, with links and strategies to get you started.
If you’re a Nextep client, your HR business partner can also help with all of this! Contact us for personalized help.
