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The Pied-Piper of Employee Retention
Employee Opinions

You are a dedicated and loyal supervisor attempting to do the best you can for your company. You’ve got your hard hat on your head, a clipboard in one hand and your spear gun in the other. You are swimming in the sea of business problems and the sharks are moving in ever-tightening circles. Soon your clipboard is sopping wet, the spears are gone, and the dorsal fins are running straight at you. Your only hope is to defend yourself with the spear gun without spears and it is at this moment one of your employees wants to offer an opinion. You’re trying not to be consumed and now an employee wants to render an opinion!

Obviously being surrounded by man-eating sharks is not the best time to listen but because you don’t listen, you may miss the shark repellent offered by this employee. By not listening you have missed the solution and are now lunch for Shammeaux (It’s a Cajun shark).

In the book entitled First Break All the Rules, the authors, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, write about a survey conducted by the Gallup Poll using the responses of over 100,000 employees. The focus of this article is on one of the questions directly related to retention concerning recognition: "At work, do my opinions seem to count?"

All humans have basic emotional needs required for happiness. These needs are to love, to be loved, to feel worthwhile to ourselves, and to feel worthwhile to others. In a contented person all these needs are met. While an employee may not perceive love on the job site the last two are critically important to job satisfaction. Having a person’s opinion count (to feel worthwhile) goes a long way towards creating job satisfaction and a desire to earn a living with this company.

In order for companies to realize the maximum investment in employees, several things have to happen. The first is management needs an increased awareness of the treasure trove of knowledge available for them from their employees. The old style of manager was not interested in employee’s opinions or suggestions thus effectively cutting them off from the person whom was most knowledge-able about their job.

There is a second factor that has to occur before employees are willing to express themselves. If supervisors do not value this wealth of information, then this source will dry up and supervisors will have to operate in the dark. It is bad enough to be surrounded by sharks but having to fend them alone and in the dark, the task becomes insurmountable.

The last thing necessary for the transfer of the vast wealth of employee knowledge is for supervisors to actually encourage this information exchange. The supervisor has to set the atmosphere by actually listening. Listening for understanding by suspending judgment and really searching for what will work instead of what wouldn’t work. “We’ve tried that before. That will never work here. Just mind your own job!” These are responses that close down employees and do not encourage future participation.

Instead, try open-ended responses that encourage further explanation, “How would you suggest implementing that suggestion? How could that work in this department? Do you see how this job could be done more efficiently?” Responses like these solicit more information and discussion. Perhaps by combining the employee’s specific experiences and the supervisor’s big-picture overview, an effective solution will evolve.

Having this type of dialogue will insure future information exchanges and the employee will have an increased sense of belonging and a feeling of being worthwhile to others. Because employees have been heard, this cornucopia of information will enhance corporate bottom lines. This is a Win-Win situation: employees want to be valued and know their efforts make a difference and company’s reap the benefits of valuable information. If a supervisor does not value employee’s opinions, then according to the statistics complied by the Gallup Poll, the Pied-Piper of Employee Retention will steal away your valuable employees and they will leave to go where they feel worthwhile and appreciated.