Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ, explains how managers can identify what employees actually need by asking about their biggest frustrations and desires. Use one-on-one conversations to surface what pushes people away from work and what pulls them toward it, then offer targeted benefits like cleaning services or gym memberships instead of generic gifts.
Let's talk about why you need to give your employees an unusual gift that they might actually love. Listen, you know, the burnout is horrible and that employee retention and attraction are of paramount importance. My team at Leadership IQ learned that only 25% of leaders feel that their employees are thriving mentally right now, and that 79% of leaders have seen less productivity as a result of employee burnout. But what's underlying all that pain? Is it that people are overworked due to staffing shortages? Is it that employees are struggling to work from home effectively while having their kids around? Is it trying to maintain a household while still doing their jobs? Are they frustrated with their weight and their health? It's likely that across your workforce, you've got employees who are frustrated with all of those things and dozens more. The challenge for you is to assess diagnose the frustrations and demotivators that are most impacting your unique workforce. Hi, I'm Mark Murphy, CEO, Leadership IQ, and let's dig into this. Most companies, unfortunately, take a guess as to what their employees might enjoy, and that's how so many companies end up giving their employees generic gift cards or fruit baskets or whatever. While it's not wrong to give employees gifts or offer benefits that could attract and retain employees, companies should try and target these offerings to deliver maximum benefit to the well-being of their people. To do that, each manager in your organization is gonna need to ask employees about their shoves and tugs. Shoves are demotivators. They're the issues that drain your energy, frustrate you and make you want to quit. In other words, they shove you out the door. Tugs are motivators. They're the factors that fulfill, excite, and motivate you, make you want to keep working here. In other words, they, they tug at you to stay. To discover each employee's shoves and tugs, managers will need to conduct a one-on-one conversation with each person and ask minimally two questions. First, Could you tell me about a time in the past month or two when you felt demotivated? 2. Could you tell me about a time in the past month or two when you felt really motivated? And employees' answers to those questions are going to reveal the particular moments and situations that frustrated and demotivated them. Within those answers, leaders will discover the solutions to alleviating those frustrations, and that brings us back to the idea of giving employees gifts or benefits that will make a real difference in their lives. For example, if you discovered a large number of employees were struggling with household chores while working from home, you might consider offering employees a subscription to a cleaning service. If it's more an issue of trying to maintain family rhythms with long hours, perhaps a food delivery membership would be more, uh, more appropriate. If you hear frustrations about health, you might consider gym memberships or emotional wellness classes. If the top concern is a lack of career advancement, maybe educational reimbursement is the way to go. None of those benefits are in and of themselves good or bad. Their efficacy is going to depend entirely on the context of your particular employee population. The key is to better understand the pains of your people and avoid the reflex to give everyone something kind of bland and generic. Let's go next level with all this. Companies are desperate for highly skilled people leaders, and we've got several award-winning leadership courses about to start. Go to leadershipiq.com or look at the links below and check them out. You're going to get the most practical, complete, and research-backed leadership training available anywhere. There are courses like The Science and Practices of Managing People, The Leader is Coach, Hiring for Attitude, What Great Communicators Do Differently. They're all starting soon, so better hurry up and check them out at leadershipiq.com, or again, just look at the links below. Thousands of your leadership peers are making 2022 the year to skyrocket their careers. Why don't you join them? Bye for now.
