Sir-tainly the best leadership advice I've heard

Sir Richard Branson's quote "Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don't want to."

In a 2014 tweet, Sir Richard Branson offered the advice to leaders that you should "Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don't want to." As a professional offering Experience consulting, it should come as no surprise to you that I couldn't agree more.

Many companies today preach professional development and job training as a means of growing their employees and making them feel that their employers are 'investing' in them. The sentiment, however, falls flat when employers don't treat employees well, obviously. And for those of you who have grown up working in toxic organizations, you may legitimately be wondering: "What does it mean to 'treat your employees well'?"

When I evaluate organizations, I look at is their "People" and their "Place".

People

How do organizations treat their people well? Before you say it- just because someone is getting free meals at work doesn't mean they are being treated well!

Impactful Leadership

Good leadership means taking the time to listen to your people, seeking and valuing their opinions, fixing things that are broken, leading with trust, granting autonomy and treating people like adults are just a few underrated ways of impacting your people at work. What it comes down to is hearing what they have to say, what they need to grow and then actually doing something with that information. Anyone can send their employee to an expensive corporate training course but how much more impactful would it be for that leader to personally help that person develop their skills and mentor them through their growth.

Processes and Procedures

Anyone in Corporate America knows that there are procedures in place for just about everything. What most people in Corporate America think is that they are antiquated, time consuming and a pointless waste of time. My point here is not to bash a process- because I, for one, LOVE a good process. But processes should be evaluated often to ensure that they're actually helpful and not a hinderance on productivity. What I have found is that bad processes can frustrate employees which ultimately brews disengagement. Processes can and should exist! But things change over time and processes should too.

Policies

Corporate policies of yesteryear included things like allowing jeans on Fridays. Now we are hearing all about company-wide mandates, work from home minimums, work-life balance, averages of X days in the office to be eligible for a promotion, and coffee swiping. It's obvious to me that organizations are frazzled trying to achieve certain goals and in doing so are continuously slapping rules into the handbook. My advice in developing policies is that you do such with your people in mind. If a mandate is necessary, do your research to see where you can offer an olive branch so that you aren't contributing to engagement issues down the road.

place

Speaking of mandates, let's talk about the importance of "Place" when it comes to treating your employees so well that they don't want to leave you.

Imagine this:

You had your best professional year ever while working from home in 2021. You achieved all of your targets and then some! Your company was essentially printing money because they were reaping the rewards of a productive, commute free environment across their entire team. Fast forward a few years later and that same employer is demanding you come back to the office because what you really need is collaboration and teamwork in order to grow as a team.

So you put on your big kid pants and go into the office, with 95 of your colleagues and sit in 1 of 95 cubicles in a dingy office that has no access to daylight except for the 6 c-suite leaders that have windows. You spend 40 minutes and $12 per day commuting only to sit in a cubicle in back to back virtual meetings with your teammates who are scattered across the same building as you. You would book a room for the team to meet in except they are all booked for recurring meetings by the boss' executive assistant for a meeting that rarely occurs in person because the boss is traveling (again).

That just doesn't sit well, does it? It really doesn't feel like your "Place" is enhancing "collaboration and teamwork" as promised.

My agenda is NOT to preach that everyone should work from home because I genuinely do not believe that to be true. My opinion is that if your team is making the effort to come in to the office, their productivity shouldn't be hindered when they get there. Things like no-meeting Mondays are a #policy I can get behind if it enhances collaboration and strengthens team dynamics. But rethinking the workplace is really where Workplace Strategy and Experience can shine. If organizations want collaboration, great! Then let's build spaces for people to collaborate; you can't collaborate from a cubicle.

Giving workers the necessary tools, processes and procedures, mentorship and development to get their work done, IS ALL part of treating them well.

Contact

Contact the eXperience Group today to evaluate your employees' needs so we can assess how to make a Workplace Experience they won't want to leave! Sir Richard Branson was onto something! Your employees are your biggest asset and are worth the long-term investment.