Retention and Relationships: There Is a Connection

Lately, I’m hearing about a great deal of turnover in organizations. As I’ve spoken with leaders who are experiencing this, I’ve observed with them that there are a number of potential factors that causes someone to leave the company.

One leader observed the impact of COVID on the choices people have wanted to make. They’ve had little to no control over most areas of their life for over a year. COVID restrictions meant people couldn’t make choices about dining in. They’ve not seen people and interacted with people the way they’d like. They may have felt little choice about where to work, if they still had a job. With the light at the end of the tunnel becoming a little more visible, people are ready for change.

Some will leave your organization because they were offered an opportunity that paid more.

Others will leave because of the many changes they experienced in their workplace and they simply want out.

And of course, people move, leave to take care of parents, the list is long.

What I also see is that leaders fail to build relationships with their teams. If you’re leading hundreds or thousands of people, you can’t begin to do this for everyone. But every leader can build relationship with those they directly oversee. 

No, I don’t think a relationship of trust and care will cause every person to stay, but I do believe it will make it harder. Most people leave an organization and don’t feel much pain in leaving the people they work for. They’ll miss a few friends they’ve come to appreciate, but management won’t be a reason for pause. 

Leader, you must build relationships. And not pseudo relationships with a single motive: cause people to think twice about leaving. I’m talking about a real relationship marked with a lot of listening, a lot of questions to learn, understanding of what motivates them and how to best communicate and lots of trust. A real relationship. 

People need connection. They need relationships. If you lead people, you have an opportunity, even a mandate, to care enough to build healthy relationships of mutual trust.