Company Blog

What do you want?

by Adam Zack — January 6, 2021

Very few leaders get an A in communication

The struggle to effectively and constantly communicate to your employees is very real. It’s ongoing, never ending and increasingly more challenging. As your team matures and new generations are hired, what’s important to them and what you think is important to them move further apart. You haven’t changed, but they sure have, right? The thing that doesn’t change is that employees (from upper management down to courtesy clerks) just want to know what’s going on. What are the goals, programs, changes, initiatives, results and plans? How is the company doing? Are the owners happy with our work? Why are we doing what we’re doing? Very few leaders get an A in communication. I’d say the average is maybe a C-. And it’s not just in the grocery business – it’s everywhere. Recently I came across a list of what employees actually want versus what their bosses think that they want.

What Employees Want (Starting with the most important)

Full appreciation for work done
Feeling “in” on things
Sympathetic help on personal problems
Job security
Good wages
Interesting work
Promotion/growth opportunities
Personal loyalty to workers
Good working conditions
Tactful discipline

What Bosses Think Their Employees Want (Starting with the most important)

Good wages
Job security
Promotion/growth opportunities
Good working conditions
Interesting work
Personal loyalty to workers
Tactful discipline
Full appreciation for work done
Sympathetic help with personal problems
Feeling “in” on things

Because we have always been in a very low net profit business, we are always trying to control costs and therefore think that money is the most important thing. It’s not. The top three most important things to employees cost virtually nothing but some time and effort. The results of that time and effort are amazing employee morale, productivity and job satisfaction.