Lonnie Mayne
In today’s world, leaders must do even more than they have in the past to create a better employee experience.
Guest post written by Lonnie Mayne of Red Shoes Living.
in today’s world, specifically, leaders must do even more than they have in the past to create a better employee experience. This can be difficult because there’s so much going on with the evolving current environment, remote work teams and work office spaces, etc. So, we need to work even harder as leaders which means first and foremost, we really need to be taking care of ourselves, our health, both physical and mental, because if we’re not taking care of ourselves, we can’t take care of others.
What we see great leaders doing right now is connecting with their teammates/employees in a way that they’ve never done before, even if they’re physically not in the same area. Whether they’re on a video call or a phone call, it means really slowing things down, turning the noise of the business down, to connect with the employee and truly see them for the human being that they are. It’s understanding what their story is for the day, where appropriate of course, both personally and professionally. It’s spending some time not talking about work with them but talking about how things are going for them. It’s really paying attention like never before.
Basically, we spend half of our life doing our job (if you take our sleeping time out). We have approximately 16 hours in a day where we are alive and awake and more than half of those 16 hours, in most cases, we’re doing work of some kind. The real key here is connection, paying attention to people and recognizing if they’re getting burned out, or if maybe something exciting is going on in their lives. Either way, they’re dealing with so many things right now that they haven’t had to deal with in the past.
So as a leader, the bottom line is just making sure that we’re really connecting, paying attention, checking in, supporting and becoming the best advocate we possibly can be for those that are working for us. The other significant part of this is recognizing your employees for the contributions that they’re making. People want to be and need to be seen, like never before. Your employees want to be seen as contributing to the workplace and for the beautiful human beings that they are. This is critically important.
In creating a better employee experience, understanding is also key. At Red Shoes Living, we call it tapping into their 20. Twenty percent of who your employee is as an individual represents their deepest desires, goals, aspirations, and what’s important to them at any given time. Understanding this is necessary as a leader and we need to know these things about our employees. Otherwise, we don’t know how to inspire them, take care of them, or how to become their advocate. As an example, if somebody has a family, then the family is going to be in their 20, or significant other is going to be in their 20, or their hobbies or animals are going to be in that 20 percent.
Today, more than ever before, it’s imperative to pay attention, not only to the job we’re asking them to do, but to what is important to them. Inspiring your employees might not have anything to do with work at all.
