Building Rapport with your staff and teams
Posted on October 22, 2021 by Christine Cuthbert, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
Building rapport and strong relationships with staff will develop loyalty, trust, and a group of diverse hard working people that will produce results
Imagine walking into work and all your staff are already working! You look around and see smiles on their faces. You hear happy chatter amongst a few. You greet some as you walk by them as you get closer to the coffee pot, pour yourself a cup, carry on to your desk and feel this amazing presence of empowerment, excitement, and accomplishments! YOU CREATED THIS – THIS IS AMAZING, AND CONGRATULATIONS!
Here’s how it happens:
You make eye contact with someone and welcome this person into your office. You simply just say hi, how are you? What is going on? How can I serve you today? What’s on your mind? How was your night last night? I heard a few people went to see the new James Bond movie, have you seen it yet? This is how gentle, easy conversation happens; being present and curious! You are engaged, you care and offer nothing but some friendliness. Maybe you get into a simple challenge and help them, or maybe you offer a pat on the back or a job well done for something; a casual opportunity to provide positive feedback. What is this? It is rapport building, building trust, empathy and loyalty. It shows you value someone that works under your care, that you see them as a person; an equal with a job to do in a company you both work for, or maybe you own? It is the start of a great long-lasting relationship with someone that knows you value them and will perform for you.
Okay, maybe their employment isn’t as long as we like, but while this person is working under our care, we take pride in their development, accomplishments and guide them to improve their skills while they work for us. If we take the selfishness out of what WE NEED from them to accomplish financial wealth and healthy bottom lines; here, this is where we find deep meaning in our jobs and value each other. We bring a sense of pride to what we do grinding at work all day. Knowing you made an impact on someone’s life is so freaking rewarding, isn’t it? It is for me. It is a growth mindset and the pleasure and enjoyment I get as I watch someone develop their life, career, skills and move on in the next step of their life.
Yep, move on. We cannot expect someone to stay employed with us for more than 2-5 years it seems anymore. We need to accept that people move fast. Our World is fast, and our minds work overtime looking at the next shiny thing. Sadly, social media and how fast-paced life is nowadays has created this urgency and need of new shiny things and experiences to make us happy. How can we change this? Keep our staff engaged with learning whether it is related to their job or not. Give rewards to people who perform. Let them explore their interests when they do jobs well. Giving them 5% or more of each day, week or month to work on a project or goal that isn’t related to their specific job tasks gives them a mental break from the mundane tasks they do at work the rest of the time.
Obviously we need to set boundaries and expectations to perform and cover our basic needs in our environments, but reward is a gift we can offer. Stay tuned for a boundaries and expectations blog post next.
