Simply put, no!
Over the years many studies have taken place to recognize the importance of communication in a work place and time and time again it’s been proven that performance feedback is critical to ensuring job satisfaction and high employee retention. And yet, a study from 2012 revealed that only 54% of respondents had formal meetings with their boss to discuss job performance.
From the same sample, only 10% of that group was promoted in 2012 and 72% of those promoted were not told WHY they were promoted. And as a result to these actions the survey found that only 1 in every 2 employees felt important to their employer (much of this percentage due to lack of performance feedback and other communication issues).
If you want to keep employee retention, and make your employees happy, simply communicate with them! Too frequently employees leave their job simply because their manager doesn’t speak to them.
If you are looking for the exceptional performance of employees then you need to keep them engaged and make them relevant to your company. Though casual conversation also helps employees feel important, it’s most important to sit down and formally speak of the performance of each and every one of your employees. This at least allows them to know where they stand in terms of keeping their job, being promoted, etc. Most employees want to help their company out in some way, it’s the company’s job to let them.
Important Topics to Speak With Employees About:
1. Regularly communicate with each employee on a social/personal level (asking how their weekend was, how their wife/kids are doing, etc.)
2. Initiate work-related conversations to establish trust and a team.
3. Reiterate what is expected of your employees, even if they are not doing anything wrong.
4. Whenever an employee does a job well done on a project be sure to personally say “Good job.” This is more important than you may think.
5. Frequently give feedback on performance, including room for improvement and exceptional completed work.
6. Let employees know how important they are to the company, and how their work contributes to the company.
This may all seem a bit like common sense, but unfortunately nearly 46% of employers/managers/supervisors are properly doing their jobs in communicating and keeping their employees engaged. This is important not only to your employees but to your company. Turnovers are deceased and a stronger workforce is created benefiting everyone.