Does my boss care about me as a person?
This was a question my team answered about me on a yearly employee opinion survey. It is actually the question that I valued the most. I deeply cared and still do care about the people that I have managed.
This question was included on the survey because the score of it was directly correlated with the success of the manager and team.
Caring about employees as people can be something managers easily forget or take for granted. I recently had a client say “I don’t want to make charts that make it look like I’m making a difference, I want to make a real difference.”
Employees want to know what they are doing matters. My client also said “If I got hit by a bus, would anyone notice my work wasn’t getting done anymore?”
A manager can provide leadership to a team by creating a collective vision that the team can rally behind. Tell your employees what achieving that vision will look and feel like and how they fit in. They want to know that what they do matters.
This was not something I excelled at when I started as a director, but I knew it was vitally important so I went looking for help. The process I found and used with my team was actually the same process that our leadership team was using. It was sourced from the book Traction by Gino Wickman. The success I had after implementing this program is probably why I cried the most after I resigned to start my own business. . I had created a shared vision, and my employees would often tell me how excited they were about where the department was headed. They could truly see it and were completely bought in.
I use parts of this same process now with business owners and managers to help create the vision for their teams. It’s important because now more than ever, employees want to know how what they do helps the company. They want to know they matter.
It’s OK to not have this skill but I encourage you to get help creating it for your team. It makes a difference in employees' lives. Please care about your employees as people.
