Do you want employees to trust you and stay loyal to you?

Do you want them to be excited to work hard for you?

Well – with this week’s article revealing my #1 loyalty hack – you can win the dedication and loyalty from each and every one of your staff.

And loyalty is important for many reasons.

As Monique Valcour shares in the Harvard Business Review, “The number one reason employees quit their jobs is because of a poor quality relationship with their direct manager.”

Loyalty isn’t just critical for retention, though, it’s essential for employee engagement and productivity, too.

But how can we achieve employee loyalty? How can we do this amidst everything else we have on our plate?

The good news is that creating loyalty is relatively simple once you know this secret.

The other good news is that developing loyalty among your employees can save you time in the long-run.

Because there’s a level of trust and respect, employees are less likely to cause problems and are more invested in helping achieve department and company success.

Ok, Paulette, so what’s the secret? What’s the #1 loyalty hack?

The #1 loyalty hack is to encourage personal development and growth. 

By making an investment in an employee’s personal and professional advancement, you win their loyalty because you’re giving them something priceless.

You’re helping them connect with and uncover their purpose and passion.

You’re making them feel valued and valuable.

In order to build true loyalty, you need to encourage your employees’ growth in a genuine way.

As Victor Lipman wrote in a recent Forbes article, “Taking an honest interest in someone builds loyalty.”

You have to show that you care about your employees, their happiness, and their future success.

And while this doesn’t happen overnight, you’ll see the differences almost immediately once you put the #1 loyalty hack into action.

Starting today, you can help your employees connect to their purpose and passion. You can increase their loyalty to you and improve their overall work engagement.

So what are some easy ways to genuinely encourage personal development and growth?

1. Help them develop vision boards

A vision board displays images and words that spark inspiration for someone’s professional and personal future. By creating a vision board with your staff, you are assisting them to define and concentrate on their desired goals.

2. Define their passions

Help your employees determine what really excites them. What work do they especially enjoy? In which areas would they be excited to spend more time?

3. Identify professional goals

Talk with your employees and probe further into their aspirations. Where would they like to be in the next 1-3 years? What future job titles or projects would make them feel fulfilled?

4. Find or create opportunities

Seek out or develop opportunities and projects for the employee to pursue their passions and interests. This is a perfect chance for an employee to expand their knowledge and skill set. Even if it’s small step, it will mean a tremendous amount to the employee. To note, this does not mean make up a new position necessarily.

5. Continual loop-back

In the midst of everything else, try not to lose sight of your employees’ development and passions. Schedule a loopback conversation every few months to see how things are going and to ask how you can assist them more in achieving their goals.

These development conversations can happen during regular touch-base meetings, performance reviews, or personal off-the-cuff talks. No matter your style or approach, encouraging your employees’ development will cement their loyalty.

Interested in freeing up more time to have meaningful employee development conversations?

Use this month’s download ‘The HR Time Drain Calculator‘ to help you determine how much time you’re spending on common HR tasks.

With ideas from last week’s self-managed employee model and upcoming articles on hiring hacks and time saving tools, you’ll have more time for important professional development conversations.

Download: The HR Time Drain Calculator

Use this simple Google Sheets calculator to quickly estimate the investment you really make in HR every year, in 3 easy steps:

1. Select your hourly rate (or your managers).
2. Estimate the monthly hours you spend on HR tasks in the areas of recruitment, onboarding, management and culture.
3. Get an instant annual cost to your business.

Any questions?

If you have questions on this topic or any others, feel free to reach me by email or set up a free one-on-one consultation session, or drop me a comment below.

Thanks for sharing!