How to Love the Ones You’re With - Number One Action

Sure, I earn my living when employees change jobs. Not so much when they stay. But my relationships with clients and companies are strong and often personal, and I want the best for them. The best for them today in our continuing tough hiring environment is to “love the ones they’re with” in case any of you are old enough to remember that tune.

Early in my career, one of the best teams I ever worked with was the best team if you relished learning and challenge, because everyone was expected to perform at levels much higher than their titles.  The CEO (public company) would challenge even us “lower-ly” accountants to solve high profile problems at our divisions. Seemed a bit scary. What if you get it wrong? But after a while, it was a super rewarding, comfort-zone-stretching role that just became natural.

So my fondest early career memories that were career movers for me, were most definitely centered around exposure to the thinking and demands of executives. The job was stressful, but I could not have grown so much in pure skill, confidence and comfort with ambiguity without this push. After a while you would know what the leadership team might want before they asked. That was rewarding.

I later realized that I stayed at the company through the stress, because the executive team regularly checked in with many levels of staffers with much more than just a “hello” in the hallway. The only reason I left the team was to change geographies.

During this great resignation, many are leaving for higher pay. It’s especially acute with staff at less experienced levels where every 50 cents increase per gallon of gas and 25% increase in food costs hits them harder. Yes, some part of the solution is figuring out how you can help employees financially, especially those hardest hit.

The most important action a company can take to retain employees is for the CEO to increase her/his time invested, perhaps exponentially, in one-on-one, meaningful, interaction deeper into the organization.

My firm works primarily with small fast-growing companies with flatter organizations. The depth of the CEO/exec team dive will depend. Larger companies… surely different than a smaller, growth company. The point is the same. Make CEO deeper org interaction part of your culture, and not only keep the ones you have but emphasize it in recruiting new team members.

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I placed a CFO and later a Controller reporting to the CFO. This corporate office is less than a couple hundred people. When I checked in with the Controller, I learned that she hadn’t had much interaction, if any, in three months with the CEO. One could argue that at times direct reports to the C team are more difficult to replace than the C team.

 Love the ones you’re with. And if the love is gone, call us. We can help find new love.