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Ask Your Employees These 6 Trust-Building Questions

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Creating a cohesive team requires trust. You must trust your employees to complete quality work on time. Also, your employees must trust they will be compensated for their contributions.

Building trust can be especially difficult when you have new, introverted, or remote employees. However, trust is essential to help your employee remain engaged, productive, and loyal to the organization.

Asking questions and actively listening to the answers is an effective way to build trust with your employees. Questions lead to conversations. Conversations build engagement and trust.

Ask your employees these six trust-building questions to increase cohesion among your team.

1. What is a great movie you recently watched?

Talking about movies helps your employees feel like they are talking with a casual friend. This promotes a casual work environment. You may learn about a movie that interests you. Watching it can help you connect with your employees on a personal level.

2. Can you recommend a book you recently read?

The types of books your employees read provide insight into their minds. You can learn about your employees’ thoughts, philosophies, and sense of morality. You also can uncover whether you like the same types of books or authors. This promotes mental connections.

3. What is the strangest meal you ever ate?

Your employees may have eaten tarantulas, snails, or other exotic food. Talking about these experiences promotes a relaxed atmosphere. It also helps you get to know your employees on a deeper level.

4. Do you prefer beer, wine, or neither?

Most employees enjoy humorous discussions about alcohol. You can use this topic to determine whether any of your employees prefer nonalcoholic beverages. This helps you provide appropriate beverages when you host an event.

5. If you could develop a new skill in 10 minutes, which skill would you choose?

Understanding the skills your employees are interested in is important. These skills indicate potential goals and career paths for your employees. You can implement training programs to help your employees reach their goals and advance their careers.

6. Which emerging technological innovation will significantly impact the industry in the next five years?

Find out what your employees think about the future of your industry. Also, determine where they see themselves working long-term. Talk about whether there are opportunities within your organization that may interest your employees. Discussing internal career advancement elevates employee retention.

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Surprise Your Team to Promote Employee Connection

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An April 2022 Gallup survey showed that only 32% of employees were engaged at work. Disengaged employees are not very productive. They lower employee morale and retention.

To improve engagement levels, building employee connections should be among your top priorities. One way to accomplish this objective is by doing something unexpected for your team.

When humans experience change, they process what happened, then return to their typical level of happiness. This is beneficial when, for example, an employee is passed over for a promotion. They will return to their baseline happiness within a few days.

However, this adaptation to change is unfavorable when employees get used to the perks they regularly experience at work. For instance, if you provide bagels for your team every Tuesday, they will expect to eat bagels every Tuesday. At some point, your employees no longer will see eating bagels on Tuesday as an advantage of working for your company.

As a result, you want to regularly provide employees with novel experiences. This consistently disrupts their typical levels of happiness. The more times you add to your team’s happiness, the more fun they have. This increases engagement, productivity, morale, and retention.

Implement these tips to surprise your team and build employee connections.

Promote Creativity

Incorporate the “yes, and!” structure into your next brainstorming session. When one employee shares an idea, the next employee says “Yes, and…” to build on it. This activity encourages your team to develop what they have into something bigger.

Encourage Play

Put board games or question cards in the break room. Suggest coworkers play the games or ask each other questions during their downtime.

If your team is remote, use a video conferencing app like Mibo to create immersive online experiences for your employees. They can interact with each other in the virtual environment. These actions promote happiness and well-being at work.

Facilitate Fun

Create a Slack channel dedicated to fun. The theme may be memes, office pets, or anything else your employees may find amusing. Your team can laugh at the contents to reduce stress throughout the day.

Promote Laughter

Add humor to your presentations by including a meme. Laughter helps make your content more memorable. It also promotes participation, learning, and recollection of facts.

Encourage Collaboration

Plan team-building activities to build employee connections. Also, encourage social coffee breaks and walks with coworkers during employee downtime. Participating in fun activities and socializing with coworkers increase work engagement.

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Should You Ditch the 40-Hour Work Week?

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According to the September 2022 Digital Etiquette: The Reinventing Work Report from Adaptavist, 58% of workers want the 40-hour work week to end. Also, 47% want a 4-day work week. Additionally, approximately 60% of respondents say the quality of work should be used to measure productivity rather than the number of hours worked.

This research shows how workers are shaping and adapting to their workplaces. The survey covered issues such as collaboration, communication tools, health and well-being, and the future of work for both hybrid and onsite workers.

The results indicate the changing shift from traditional workweeks to modern setups that better fit employees’ needs. This indicates that hybrid and remote work should be here to stay.

Discover why the 40-hour work week should be shortened to meet modern-day employee needs.

Changing Employee Needs

When the 40-hour work week began, most women stayed home to provide childcare, cook, clean, and run errands. Today, this concept no longer is reality.

According to an April 2022 news release from the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Statistics, 70% of women who are mothers currently engage in paid work. Most of these women also handle the majority of childcare and household needs.

Working for 40 hours each week while trying to maintain a household puts unreasonable stress on employees. This increases the odds of employee burnout. As a result, the 40-hour work week must change to accommodate the changing needs of the workforce.

Increasing Employee Burnout

A 2021 joint report from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org showed that 42% of women and 32% of men were experiencing burnout. Although many employers recognize growing employee exhaustion and overwhelm, the issue of burnout continues to worsen.

A significant source of employee exhaustion is the drastic changes in sleep patterns resulting from chronic stress due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many employees are staying up later to take time for themselves. This interferes with the ability to get productive sleep.

Another source of employee exhaustion is mothers who put in increasing hours of both paid and unpaid work each week. Lacking time for necessary self-care and sleep increases feelings of overwhelm and depletion.

As a result, burnt-out employees tend to feel less empowered, be less productive, and not perform their best at work as compared to other employees. They also have lower odds of being promoted.

Leaving behind the 40-hour work week would give employees more time to take care of their personal needs. This would increase employee engagement, productivity, and performance.

Reducing the weekly number of hours worked also would elevate employees who are mothers into more senior roles. This is especially important for companies that have few women in leadership positions.

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5 Ways to Help Keep Communication Channels Open

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Maintaining open communication with your employees encourages them to share their ideas to improve the organization. Open communication also notifies you of problems, conflicts, questions, and concerns that must be resolved.

Encouraging open communication with your team promotes engagement, productivity, and collaboration. It also elevates job satisfaction, employee morale, and retention.

Implement these five tips to maintain open communication with your team.

1. Focus on the End Goal

Maintaining open communication with your team lets you know about problems as they arise. This helps you resolve the issues and minimize their impact.

Open communication makes you aware of ideas to improve your team. This may include increasing efficiency in workflows.

Openly communicating with your team helps improve your leadership skills. You can learn your employees’ strengths, talents, motivations, and goals. Then, you can use this information to increase your team’s engagement, productivity, and collaboration. This elevates job satisfaction, team morale, and employee retention.

2. Be Present

Stay in the moment when communicating with your team. Actively listening to your employees encourages them to talk about their ideas, issues, questions, and concerns.

Look at the employee who is speaking with you. Show they have your complete attention.

Nod, gesture, and use facial expressions throughout the conversation. Include responses such as “yes” and “uh huh” to show you are listening. Ask follow-up questions to gather more information.

Paraphrase what you are hearing to ensure you understand it correctly. You may want to say, “What I am hearing is…” or “Am I correct in thinking…”.

Wait until your employee is done speaking. Then, respond appropriately.

3. Encourage Team and Individual Communication

Although communicating with your entire team is important, there may be times when your employees prefer to talk with you one-on-one. They may feel more comfortable privately discussing a personal matter than sharing the details with the team.

Encourage your team to request individual discussions when needed. They may want to share an opinion that differs from the team’s opinions on how to proceed with a project. Or, there may be a family issue that could affect your employee’s work performance.

Show empathy and support during these private discussions. Work with your employee to resolve the issue however you can.

4. Acknowledge Employee Accomplishments

Give your team credit for their work. This includes when an employee’s idea is successfully implemented or a finished project attains the desired results.

Openly acknowledging your employees’ contributions and impact on the organization shows they are valuable members of your team. This promotes feelings of trust and respect. It also increases team collaboration and cohesion.

5. Request Constructive Feedback

Ask your team for input on your performance. Include what you are doing well and specific ways you can improve.

Talk more in-depth about the answers you need clarification on. The greater your understanding of an issue, the more effectively you can resolve it.

Implement the feedback you feel would be most beneficial. Regularly follow up with your team to discuss your progress.

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What Employees Really Want from Managers

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As an IT manager, your relationship with your team is important. It impacts important issues like employee engagement, productivity, and retention.

Understanding what your employees are looking for from you helps improve their performance. The more effectively you lead your team, the more your employees will do to positively impact the bottom line.

Discover five areas to focus on to fill your IT team’s needs and maximize performance.

1. Personal Interest

Get to know your employees on a personal level. For instance, talk about their families, hobbies, and interests outside of work. Also, find commonalities that you can have more in-depth discussions about. Additionally, follow up to see how your employees’ weekend activities were.

Having casual conversations with your employees shows you care about them as people. It also helps them see you as a person rather than just a manager. This helps enhance the employee experience. The more your team members enjoy their jobs, the longer they should perform their best and remain with your company.

2. Connection

Engage with your employees through individual conversations. For instance, recognize and celebrate each employee’s successes. Also, ask your employees what they feel they are doing well and what they believe they could do better. Additionally, provide constructive feedback to help your employees improve their performance.

Encourage your employees to share what is important to them and what they may be struggling with. Actively listen to what your employees say. Show that you support them. Offer to help as needed.

Enhancing individual connections with your team helps build respect for you as their leader.

3. Acknowledgment of Strengths

Regularly acknowledge each employee’s strengths. Focus on a 3 to 1 ratio when sharing what each employee did well and what they could improve on. This helps provide the motivation to continue to improve their performance. It also increases employee confidence and engagement.

4. Purpose and Impact

Help your employees understand how their contributions impact the company and carry out its mission. Your employees want to know how their efforts help reach the organization’s strategic goals. This shows how your team individually and collectively impacts the business.

Providing a sense of purpose and impact for your employees helps build feelings of belonging and job satisfaction. Your team should remain proactive and engaged while moving toward success.

5. Career Development

Develop a career plan with each of your employees. This shows how they can advance within the organization.

Be sure to offer opportunities to develop the skills needed for promotions. You might do this through training, delegation, or stretch assignments. The more you help your employees grow professionally, the longer they should remain with your company.

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How to Show That Your Organization Values Diversity and Inclusion

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The need for companies to demonstrate their prioritization of diversity and inclusion is more important than ever. Managers and other leaders need to create a work environment where employees at all levels feel valued and respected for their uniqueness and contributions.

Your employees likely differ by gender, ethnicity, age, religion, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and physical ability. This means their diverse talents, experiences, lifestyles, personalities, perspectives, opinions, family compositions, education levels, worldviews, and tenure also differ.

As a result, you need to find ways to help each of your employees add their voice and value to your team. This helps your employees feel included in decisions, opportunities, and challenges.

Choose among the following strategies to show that your company values diversity and inclusion.

Request Employee Feeback

Ask your employees for input on how effectively they feel the company values diversity and inclusion. You may want to begin this conversation in small groups or with individual employees. Make sure you include everyone during the process.

Ask difficult questions and seek honest feedback. Remind your employees that everything they say or hear is confidential. Use your findings to make any necessary changes to the company’s diversity and inclusion initiatives.

If you do not feel comfortable talking about diversity and inclusion, send your employees an anonymous survey instead. Ask questions related to specific parts of the company’s initiatives. Use the results to improve the company’s actions to increase diversity and inclusion. Resend the survey on a regular basis to assess progress in this area.

Participate in Diversity and Inclusion Training

Engage in learning how you can better promote diversity and inclusion for all employees. As a manager, you provide the foundation for the cultural environment they work in.

Take part in assessing the current environment, creating an approach, and leading the implementation of the plans to increase diversity and inclusion. Commit to the demonstration of respect for all employees within the organization every day.

Help create a sense of psychological safety for all employees. This is shown by your actions and commitments to honoring diversity and inclusion.

Encouraging employees to express who they truly are and celebrating their unique traits is part of this process. This helps increase engagement, productivity, and retention.

Celebrate Diverse Holidays

Recognize the holidays that honor your employees’ heritage. You may want to organize a luncheon where each employee brings a cultural dish to share. Perhaps you want to hold a brown bag lunch where your employees share information about their heritage or religion. Or, you could encourage your employees to decorate their work areas to promote their personal holidays.

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Preventing Burnout with Employee Recognition Programs

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Burnout is a sign of a bad fit between an employee and their work. It is a chronic problem that builds over time. Common symptoms include cynicism, loss of concentration and productivity, sadness, anger, irritability, headaches, and insomnia. Typical causes of employee burnout include inadequate rewards, misalignment with company values, and feelings of unfairness or isolation. Fortunately, as a manager, you can begin resolving these issues today by creating an employee recognition program.

Discover four ways an employee recognition program can help prevent burnout.

1. Opportunities for Rewards

Your employees need to be recognized for their contributions and results. This increases their motivation to perform their best each day. A handwritten thank-you note, verbal praise during a team meeting, or recognition on your company’s social media accounts would be appreciated. Clarify what the employee did, what the results were, and how it benefitted the organization. Include a bonus, raise, or promotion when appropriate. Helping your employees feel valued and respected reduces their odds of experiencing burnout.

2. Alignment with Core Values

Your employees need to experience alignment with your company’s values through the interactions they experience at work. This helps provide meaning for their work and carrying out your company mission. You can give out awards when you see your employees behaving in line with your company values. This promotes feelings of importance and belonging, reducing the odds of experiencing burnout.

3. Fair Practices

Your employees deserve to be given equal opportunities. This includes verbal recognition, financial incentives, and promotions for the value they add to the organization. Your employees are likely to remain motivated, engaged, and productive throughout the day. This contributes to a positive work environment, job satisfaction, and employee retention. Your employees are less likely to experience burnout under these circumstances.

4. Feelings of Connection

Your employees need to feel supported when they go through difficult times. This helps them navigate stressful situations until they are resolved. Providing recognition celebrates your employees’ efforts and achievements. This helps them feel seen and heard. It also encourages your employees to see and hear each other. As a result, they should build relationships that include reaching out to each other in times of need. Having this sense of connection helps prevent burnout.

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Effectively Improve Your Team’s Morale

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Part of your role as a manager involves monitoring employee morale. The attitude, satisfaction, and overall outlook your team members have for your company affect their work performance. The higher their morale remains, the more engaged, productive, and loyal your team members are.

Implement these five tips to maintain high morale among your team.   

1. Prioritize Employee Recognition

Regularly acknowledge your team members’ achievements. For instance, thank them for something specific they did to add value to the organization. This may include their role in finishing a project, reaching a milestone, or attaining a company goal. Point out how their contributions benefitted the organization. Award additional vacation days, remote work days, bonuses raises, or promotions when appropriate.

2. Be Transparent

Openly discuss company news as much as possible. This includes updates, new protocols, company reviews, customer feedback, and challenges. Transparency is especially important when the company is experiencing problems or morale is low. Your employees will respect your honesty and be more inclined to help however they can.

3. Maintain Communication

Regularly check in with your team to see how they are doing. For instance, find out how they feel about you, their job, and their coworkers. Also, ask whether your team members are experiencing any problems and how you can help. Additionally, discuss whether they are happy with their work or how it can improve. Ongoing conversations about the things that matter to your team show you care about their happiness and success.

4. Request Feedback

Ask your employees for feedback on their roles and the company. They may provide suggestions to make their jobs easier or help you more effectively manage them. Or, your team members may have ideas to increase efficiency, save money, or help in another way. Implement the feedback whenever possible. Showing you listen to your team motivates them to stay engaged, productive, and loyal to your organization.

5. Offer Professional Growth Opportunities

Cover the costs for your employees to participate in professional development activities. This may include seminars, conferences, or networking events. Or, your team members may subscribe to industry magazines, purchase books on leadership development, or join an online class for skill development. Encouraging career growth provides your team with a sense of purpose while working to reach their goals.

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The Best Ways to Show Employee Appreciation

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Expressing gratitude for your team members should be an everyday occurrence. The more valued and respected your employees feel, the greater their engagement and productivity will be. This increases retention and helps make you an employer of choice.

Choose among these five ways to show you appreciate your team members.

Directly Express Your Gratitude

Use verbal and written methods to show specific reasons you are thankful for your staff members. For instance, tell your employees exactly how their contributions to a project benefitted the company. Also, write a thank-you note expressing gratitude for a team member going above and beyond to provide value to the organization. Additionally, include more positive feedback in your employee reviews.

Begin Meetings with Appreciation

Highlight your employees’ recent accomplishments when you start a meeting. This may include career milestones, innovation, an exhibition of company values, or another display of excellence. Point out how your staff members’ hard work and results added value to the company. Thank them for their efforts. Encourage your team to continue their performance.

Provide Financial Rewards 

Your employees appreciate being given monetary rewards for their contributions. For instance, give bonuses when your team members have significant accomplishments. Also, provide additional vacation days after a busy period. Additionally, give out gift cards for birthdays or work anniversaries, during the holidays, or when your staff finish a big project.

Organize a Team Activity

Set up something fun for your team to do after a busy period or during a slow time. For instance, give your employees humorous coffee mugs to use at the office. Take your staff to a restaurant they enjoy. Or, arrange an in-office party to share food, beverages, and games on a Friday afternoon.

Include Advancement in Your Team Culture  

Offer opportunities for your employees to move up in the organization. For instance, provide regular training to gain the education and skills needed for higher positions. Also, offer a mentorship program for seasoned staff to provide career advice and guidance. Additionally, cover the costs for seminars, conferences, and other networking opportunities.

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Finding the Real Reason for Employee Turnover

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If your IT team is experiencing high turnover, simply replacing your staff will not resolve the problem. You need to get to the root of the problem in order to create lasting change. This will reduce the amount of time and money needed to find and retain top talent.

Here are three ways to uncover why your IT staff are leaving so you can improve retention.

1. Ask Questions

Find out the specific reasons why your IT team members are leaving. For instance, ask what they like and dislike about their job, what your team and company are doing well, and concrete ways you can improve. Encourage your employees to be as honest and candid as possible. Also, go through your current and former employee files to determine whether there are known issues within the organization. Problems such as ineffective onboarding, policies inconsistently enforced, or tensions with coworkers may have been discussed during exit interviews. Talk with leadership about this information and take action to improve.

2. Conduct a Survey

Hire a third party to survey your current and former IT staff about their true impressions of your team and the company. Clarify that all answers will remain anonymous. Look for themes in engagement surveys, stay interviews, and exit surveys to uncover reasons why your employees remain or leave. Perhaps the staff who left after a short time felt that additional training was necessary to do their jobs. Or, they did not receive enough recognition or see enough career development opportunities. Talk with leadership about implementing specific improvements to increase employee satisfaction. Share a follow-up survey to see how the changes impacted your team. Continue the process on a regular basis.

3. Evaluate Company Culture  

Determine whether there are issues with carrying out your company mission, vision, and values. Perhaps your IT staff feel they do not have a say in leadership decisions. Or, they may not believe that equity is evident in the organization. Compare the demographic data of your departing team members to the data from your assessment. Then, talk with leadership about how to resolve the problems. This may include the formation of employee focus groups to focus on specific areas for improvement first, then move to other areas later.

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