What can you do to increase employee loyalty?

Great employees can help you achieve the world. When a worker feels empowered and motivated, that morale can be the secret to building a sustainable team. It can even be the key to fostering the kind of company culture your organisation needs.

Building employee loyalty takes time and meticulous application. Some companies need years to master the art of loyalty. Those that do, often expend resources to attain the ultimate goal – a strong team with passionate employees, whose invincibility becomes the foundation to consistent company growth. Is your firm seeking the same results and outcomes?

The good news is how it’s possible to boost employee loyalty and take advantage of the benefits to your company. We’ll explore why employee is such an irreplicable commodity – but one that’s simple to cultivate with the right approach. Let’s find out what this means to your company, staff morale, and reputability and how to improve employee loyalty.

What is ‘employee loyalty'?

In essence, this essentially denotes workers whose actions and mindset are centred on the success of their organisation. An employee that’s loyal to your company should believe that working at your company is in their best interest. Actions are defined by what workers don’t do, as opposed to what they do. The results manifest quietly but significantly, as employees shy away from alternative employment opportunities and instead plan to remain at your organisation.

Loyalty, of course, goes both ways. After all, an employee should have a compelling reason to be loyal. One of those is the fact they feel a company is loyal to them as well. In this case, employees can trust a company to offer them the chance to pursue opportunities that’ll help them to advance within the organisation. This could mean taking lead in a meeting, managing larger projects, or earning a distinction.

Why is employee loyalty such a powerful quality?

A trustworthy, motivated  and satisfied employee is quite possibly the most important asset. To retain such individuals means to attain a sustainable competitive advantage over the long term.

One such quality is an increase in productivity. Employees exhibiting loyalty will carry this out through input to their primary role within the organisation. Within the framework of their primary role, they will approach and engage the task with increased effort and attentiveness, likely boosting their efficiency.

Loyal employees enhance a company’s image in more ways than one. Most significantly, their personal review of the company, its working conditions, as well as upcoming products and developments are more likely to be favourable. As word-of-mouth remains far more compelling, this information will reach audiences faster, leaving a longer-term impression.

In fiscal terms, retaining an employee is far more economical than hiring new staff. From this perspective, it makes sense to allocate resources to boost loyalty and employee engagement as opposed to repeating this process from the very beginning. Combined with the above qualities, loyalty is a revenue-builder in itself.

What your organisation can do: tips for fostering employee loyalty

A company can offer much to retain employees and maintain loyalty. One of these things is to create programmes that systematically keep people engaged with the company. Here are a few qualities that can help improve you as an employer.

Primarily, acting on the holistic aspects of working with employees will offer the greatest benefit with only modest financial commitment. Based on existing resources your company can already shift its approach towards acting directly on employee feedback in addition to recognising and demonstrating appreciation towards productive feedback. If possible, a further step would be to offer incentives and perks for issuing such feedback.

One of the leading causes of low feedback in any organisation is fear of consequence. By committing to a pro-discussion and open working environment, you can foster improved dialogue between people in the organisation. Further measures involve extending trust and empowerment to your employees, through pledges of anonymity and secrecy when handling survey results, minutes taken from meetings, as well as informal discussions.

Leadership by example will ultimately guide employees to engage with your initiatives. By demonstrating a passion and enthusiasm for your work as a manager, this credibility will rise further. Consider the following positively-reinforcing traits: answering pressing company-related questions, ‘deciphering’ rumours, mediating conflicts, or showing clear compassion during employees’ times of difficulty.

Above all, ensure you align employees with your company vision. By being human-centric, you stand to distinguish yourself as a manager and carry a charisma that is vital to earning the loyalty of your team members.

What you can do as a manager to make employees feel attached to company

Behavioural traits are the most personable and compelling methods of connecting with employees. Optimism and genuine gestures are obvious but necessary to reiterate, as these are inherent qualities that can make or break trust with your team.

Leading through care and compassion – as opposed to suggesting negative repercussions – are sustainable measures to create a cohesive and trust-based environment. In fact, interaction should form the foundation of your day – by likewise offering feedback regularly, even daily. Your company culture may suggest the best form of delivery: public, private, electronic, verbal, or hand-written. But in essence, it’s best to simply ‘go with the flow’.

How to increase employee loyalty? Your next steps

By committing proactively, with positively reinforcing behaviours, you will lead by example, and work towards a loyal employee base.

When you consider the actions needed to do this, it’s advised to view everything within the framework of making your employees comfortable, albeit productive and focused. Take note to place particular focus on results and productivity, and not make goals personal.

In general, be specific. But when looking at making changes, and boosting loyalty, take it one step at a time. Look at examples of bad behaviours that you would like to eliminate, change, or evolve. From here, you can begin the process, and apply a similar model for subsequent behaviours.

Take care to look at digital tools to aid you in your objectives as well. Leading gamification platforms offer a wide range of ways to enhance loyalty, productivity, and commitment to daily work tasks by breaking down the day into individual, intuitive ‘quests’ and ‘objectives.’

In any case, your approach is central to making the change, and building a better tomorrow. Ask us about the tools that can help you. With the right mindset, heart, and measures at your disposal – positive change begins today!