Ask me why I really quit!

Imagine that you are a manager of a medium large company. Every six months you see employees quitting and you being unable to constitute a strong and cohesive team. What would you do?

I started observing managers and supervisors while working as a support agent in a call center. The job was not easy. Expectations from the agents were always higher and basically impossible to achieve. On the other hand, I could daily see amazing young and creative people unable to use their potentials to improve the quality of service because there was no place for growth. Every three months you could see people quitting the job without ever being asked how was their working experience.

Workplace culture matters

Later on in my career, I had the opportunity to compare the “non-asking why" approach with the one that was based on the "why why why mantra". Companies that ask why are almost always the one that innovate, grow faster and have happier employees that want to stay longer in the company. They feel that they matter. This feeling of being important as a worker is typical for Millennials (generation born between 1980' and 2000') and Millennials are approximately 70% of the working force in many European countries. Therefore, understanding the culture of this particular group of people is without doubt a good investment.

Employee turnover is expensive

Losing an employee is expensive. Quality of service will immediately drop and you will have to hire and train a new candidate. The new hire will have to adopt and integrate in a team and this can be tricky. The chances are big that your ex-employee did not leave because salary was not high enough but because he or she was not happy with general politics in the company. So, before losing another amazing member of your team, try to adopt some ethnographic techniques that can help you make your employee retention practice better.

3 techniques that can help you understand your employees better

1. Learn to observe

If you want to have an innovative, motivated and playful team, you also have to able to take care about your employees, who care about your customer. If your team is happy, there are high chances that your customers will be happy and you will be able to innovate and develop your business. This means that you have to learn how to observe patiently what’s going on within your team. Observe employee's behaviors for a couple of weeks, organize team buildings and evoke their actions through different role plays. Observe, do not judge!

2. Ask Whys

If you really want to know why people do what they do and feel what they feel, you have to cultivate curiosity. By asking why, you create space for your employees to be heard. This is how you show them how much they matter as a team member. Ask why with honest intention of finding out what matters the most to them. It is extremely important to build a safe space, so the employees can say what they really think and not what they think you would love to hear.

3. Personalize benefits of employees

Each of your employees has something unique and most probably has some special talent. Try to find out what that is and how that little something can be incorporated in his/hers daily work. We know that 70% of the world’s working force are Millennials and to them is the most important to find a purpose in whatever they do. In my opinion, this is the most beautiful generation ever! We have open-minded, curious, free, democratic and smart people ready to create wonderful things. Your task is to let them know that they can!