Are your listening skills killing your employee retention?

Are you listening to your employees? Over the last few weeks, I have had an amazing number of conversations with management level professionals about why they left their firms or are wanting leave. All of them seem to have one thing in common. Their firms aren’t asking or listening to what their employees want or how they want to engage to help the organization grow. As a result, I see these people switching jobs or leaving and starting their own practice- often times leaving the firm confused.

Good listening starts with asking the right questions- or just asking the questions period. Too often I hear two sides of the conversation when communication fails. “The employee never mentioned x,y,z” says the partner. “I was never asked what I thought” said the employee.

I read a great post this week on Inc Magazines Blog on 5 things remarkable bosses never do. My favorite was that good bosses don’t hold formal meetings to solicit ideas. Why? Because they are having regular conversations with their employees and ASKING for input and feedback. They don’t wait for “the input” meeting (aka-performance review, career plan meeting or company meeting) to have those conversations. The one thing the article doesn’t highlight (or maybe its in the article of what remarkable leaders do) is they then LISTEN to the response and more importantly RESPOND.

Now I know that you can’t always cater to every whim an employee wants. However, in my experience most of the time the employee want to know they have been heard and that their is a course of action or support for their viewpoint.

Whether your are a partner, manager or associate in your firm- I encourage you to practice Asking, Active Listening, and Response with all your employees in the next few weeks and see what it can do to motivate your employees.