Create a diverse, employee-centered company culture
Your company culture sets the tone for relationships in your organization. An inclusive culture that celebrates diversity establishes an accepting environment for your employees. They feel safer to be themselves and utilize their skills and talents fully. It also shows your employees that you value their differences, which can create a stronger relationship.
Skip micromanagement
Micromanaging in the workplace hurts the trust in employee-employer relationship. It shows employees that you don’t believe they can handle the workload on their own and that they’re not capable of making decisions for themselves. It can be difficult to give up control in your company, but setting guidelines and trusting your employees to work within them can improve your relationship, the quality of work and employee productivity.
Improve your social and emotional intelligence
Tuning in to how your employees feel and behave helps you learn how to interact with them individually. Dealing with all employees the same way isn’t usually effective, and it doesn’t help you build individual relationships. Emotional intelligence allows you to understand and control your own emotions while also recognizing and understanding emotions in others. It helps you stay in control of yourself and understand how to handle your employees based on their emotions.
This helps avoid misunderstandings and conflict. For example, if an employee is facing a tight deadline, they might become irritable or snap at other employees. Disciplining the employee or matching the negative energy can escalate the situation. Instead, you might recognize that the deadline is looming or talk to the employee gently to dig deeper. Likewise, if you’re feeling stressed or irritable and walk around snapping at your employees for no reason, you’ll create a tense work environment.
Establish an open-door policy
Do your employees feel like they can share their ideas and concerns with you? Having an open-door policy encourages honest communication and improves the relationship. It helps build trust and lets employees have a voice. Allowing employees to share openly can also reveal innovative ideas that solve an organizational problem, streamline your processes or otherwise improve your organization.
When your employees take advantage of the open-door policy, use active listening to understand what they’re saying. Have a process for handling suggestions and complaints that you receive. Taking action on the conversations shows your employees that sharing is meaningful and the open-door policy isn’t just for show.
Spend one-on-one time with employees
To strengthen the employer-employee relationship, you need to connect with individual employees. Holding one-on-one meetings with employees gives you a chance to chat and get to know them better individually. These meetings are often used for employee evaluations and planning, but you can also spend some time talking about personal interests and goals outside work.
Set reasonable goals
Establishing employee performance goals helps set expectations, so employees know how to perform well. It’s important to make the goals realistic, though. Unattainable goals leave employees feeling frustrated. They may feel like you’re out of touch with what’s realistic or don’t care that your expectations are too high. Work with your employees to develop reasonable goals, and find out what support they need to achieve them.
Recognize achievements
Acknowledging the efforts and achievements of your team also helps build a strong employment relationship. Verbal recognition when you see someone doing something well is often effective, or you can create a formal employee recognition program. Recognition shows employees that you’re paying attention and appreciate what they do. When done sincerely, it helps create positive feelings toward you and the management team.
Embrace transparency
Employees can’t trust you if you’re not transparent. There might be some things that stay within the management team, but keeping everything hidden sets up an environment of mistrust. Employees may feel like you don’t trust them with any real responsibility, or they might wonder what you’re hiding. Being transparent helps strengthen your relationship with your employees and helps get them on board to support your company’s mission.
Put in the work
Owners and managers sometimes feel they’re above doing the hard work because of their position. They might make exceptions for themselves or play by a different set of rules. This creates more separation between leadership and employees. Hold yourself and your managers to the same standards as other employees. Spend time working alongside your employees, so they see you putting in the effort. It gives you a chance to get to know your employees better and see them in action. You also get a better understanding of how you can support your employees to make their jobs easier.
Be consistent
Handling situations consistently, especially in the way you treat your employees, helps improve relationships. If you show favoritism , employees will notice and resent the situation. It creates tension between employees and makes people wonder how you’ll handle each new situation. That uncertainty creates an unpleasant work environment that makes it difficult to foster positive relationships.
Offer flexibility
Flexibility in hours and work location shows that you care about your employees and want to support their needs. It allows them to serve your company while handling their personal affairs effectively. Flexible work arrangements suggest a sense of trust that your employees will get their work done to your standards even if they don’t work standard hours at the office.
FAQs about the employer-employee relationship
What are the benefits of building the employer-employee relationship?
Focusing on the employer-employee relationship makes your employees feel happier and more secure, which can increase employee retention and loyalty. It can also help you attract new hires who want to work for an employee-focused company. Working on the relationship can create a more relaxed environment without all the tension that can come with poor workplace relationships. Employees who feel supported by management may be more willing to take risks and are more productive because they feel confident.
How do you evaluate the current employer-employee relationship?
Spend time observing interactions between you, your employees and managers. Look at their reactions objectively. Asking your employees directly, either through conversations or employee surveys, can give you insight from their perspective. No employee-employer relationship is perfect, so there’s always room to improve. Evaluating the situation helps you figure out how much work you need to do.
How do you know what needs to change?
Use the feedback from employees to identify specific areas where there’s room for improvement. Assess your behaviors in different areas, such as micromanaging, being transparent and recognizing your employees. Identify the areas you want to change, and incorporate additional strategies as things start to improve.
