How to Develop Loyal Employees in a Residential Service Business (Part II)
Struggling with turnover and low morale? These 8 leadership truths show how to build loyal employees by fixing culture, communication, and career paths—starting with you.
KickStart: If you're struggling with turnover (many are) read, meditate and implement an Action Plan built on these 8 "Loyalty Tips".
I’ve been reflecting lately on our residential services industry. To paraphrase Charles Dickens, “It can be the best of businesses, it can be the worst of businesses.”
In my 40+ years in this game I’ve seen the best and the worst of our business. But I gotta say the Dark Side of our industry is much more common. So sad because...
Invariably these beat-up-on home service providers are “salt of the earth” honest people, competent technically, and work like dogs! (They don’t really have a choice!)
One common denominator among these long-suffering folks? Almost always they are struggling with poor Business Infrastructure, high turnover and dismal company morale. Why? This leads to one of my favorite proverbs…
“The fish rots from the head down!”
Yep, if you see yourself profiled above don’t blame your people. Instead, look in the mirror and start each question with “Do I…”
1. Lead by Example?
2. Publicly Recognize My People?
3. Say “Thank You” Often—And Mean It?
Want to do a deep dive review on these three Employee Loyalty suggestions? Then I highly recommend you click HERE.
But now let’s go deeper now with your somewhat uncomfortable self-analysis. Remember, begin each question with "Do I..."
4. Recognize my employee is not me? (And never will be.) I’ll admit it. I struggled (and still do) with this one. I loved the “game of business”. (Sioux correctly says too much!) 🙄 However, I’ve had to learn that even a good employee has higher priorities than my bottom line! This leads to my…
5. Seek first to understand? Yep, the new generation can be frustrating. But complaining has never built a strong team. Study what motivates your employees. Listen. Ask questions. Adapt. You don’t have to change your standards—just upgrade your leadership skills!
6. Realize I'm “competing” for employees? Never forget. Your Very Best People have lots of options. Great employees won’t stick around with a boss who ignores them, disrespects them, or treats them like faceless labor. This means you must…
7. Offer a real career opportunity- Top people want to grow. Extra responsibilities. Skills training. Bonuses for meeting high but achievable benchmarks. Quality employees need a vision of their future. A Career Path is one of the strongest loyalty builders you can create. 👍👍
8. Plan for even my best employees leaving? It happens. Life changes. Their spouse gets a promotion in another city, they go back to school, parents age or heck, your employee ages! 😯 Don’t take it personally. Instead, prepare for it. NEVER stop recruiting or training.
☠️ WARNING: If you do lose a valued employee? Please, please don’t fall back into “Desperation Hiring”!🙏 Click HERE to review why you need to be proactive starting NOW!
And if you’re struggling to compete with “The Big Boys” on wages—don’t stress. There’s a smart way around that, and we’ll tackle this topic soon!
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