Employee retention for small business owners with Matt Tenney.

Matt shares his experiences and insights from his journey to becoming a leader and helping others become small business leaders, and how leadership can help you retain the best employees for your small business.

Matt is the author of the highly acclaimed book “Serve To Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom.”

Over the last 9 years, Matt has delivered programs that help improve employee engagement and retention to hundreds of clients, including companies like Salesforce, T. Rowe Price, Roche, Marriott, Keller Williams, L’ Oreal, and many others.

Matt is also an active CEO who is currently working to build the best workplace culture in the world.

Matt lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Employee Retention with Matt Tenney:

• What led you to launching your first small business?
• Where have your most valuable leadership lessons come from?
• What is your definition of mindfulness? How does it help you to be a leader?
• From your perspective, what are some of the key reasons employers are challenged today, seemingly more than ever, with attracting and retaining employees?
• What are the “core needs” of small business employees?
• 5 factors that lead to employee leaving: unfair treatment at work, unmanageable workload, lack of clarity and communication from managers, lack of manager support, and unreasonable productivity pressure.
• 4 Steps to Improve Employee Retention: (In addition to competitive pay and benefits.)
  1. Develop Strong Leaders
     “Having leaders who can authentically demonstrate their dedication to the organization’s core values through their actions and behaviors helps them build authentic relationships with their teams, making employees more satisfied in their roles and more likely to stay.”
     Please share some thoughts on what this looks like when it’s done well. Any tips on building “authentic relationships” with employees?
  2. Offer Development Opportunities
     “Providing online or in-person training, courses that are role-specific, leadership development, as well as career-pathing for employees fulfills their need for growth and demonstrates that the organization is invested in that growth.”
  3. Give Employees Regular Feedback and Recognition
     “Regular feedback, including frequent, specific recognition of employee contributions, helps maintain retention because it shows employees that leadership is paying attention, and it demonstrates that the work they do is seen, appreciated, and acknowledged.”
     What are you tips and thoughts on how to conduct employee reviews? What are some common mistakes small business owners make related to employee feedback and recognition?
  4. Synchronize Leadership and Feedback. 
• “Inspire greatness” – our primary goal as small business owners and leaders.

Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of this episode of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run and grow your small business.

Resources:

Books mentioned in this episode:
[We receive commissions for purchases made through these links (more info)].

• Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom by Matt Tenney
• The Infinite Game Hardcover by Simon Sinek

Other Resources:

• Small Business Employee Engagement & Retention Resources

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Sponsors:

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