For years I have asked the question, "Did employees become disloyal to employers because the employer wasn't loyal; or did the employer become disloyal to employees because the employee wasn't loyal?" I don’t really have an answer but I do have a strategy for how to build loyal employees.  

The cost of employee turnover is high but the cost of disloyal employees is even higher. We all have an abundance of competition so we need our employees to be loyal for a number of reasons.  

Loyalty is really a bi-product of two things: 

1) Stimulation and 

2) Caring.  

In any relationship when you are stimulated you enjoy the relationship and it becomes a lasting relationship. The same is true when both parties care for one another and build a culture where caring about the needs of others is embraced and encouraged.

 

I tell them, "disagree, speak up and commit". Your title or position doesn't make you right as a leader. You are just as likely to be wrong as the next person. So, when you present an idea or a strategy you could be wrong. As a result you need your team to speak up when they don’t agree. When they do and they are right or their idea is better than yours you need to be willing to admit that and then commit to the better idea.  

This behavior will stimulate your team because now they believe they have a voice and when everyone commits to a strategy or plan you are more likely to be successful. This will take some time to get your team to trust that it is safe to disagree and speak up so a tip to help with this is to tell them that you are going to interpret silence as disagreement. Far too often a leader will think that silence means everyone is in agreement and has nothing to add when the opposite is often true. They are sitting in disagreement but afraid to speak up because they don’t want to cause tension or be reprimanded. I tell my team that I will interpret silence as disagreement in order to get them to speak up. If they wait until the meeting is over and do it outside of the meeting they are usually sowing discord and not actually seeking solutions. The meeting is the time to speak up but once they do everyone must be ready to commit to whatever is decided.

 

Now let’s talk about building a culture for caring. I once worked for an owner that would pass our site employees in the hall and not even speak to them. One of them commented that he probably didn't even know her name. She was correct, he didn't. It was very difficult to convince her that we cared about her because one of the leaders in the organization took no personal interest in knowing anything about the team.  

As a leader you need to work really hard to get to know as much about the people in your organization as possible. This tells them that you care about them as individuals and not just a number in an employee file. On an even greater level you need to coordinate activities that are focused on caring for others.  

Some of my favorite moments are the times when my team and I engaged in philanthropic activities. Helping a needy family, a sick child, feeding the hungry, collecting gifts during the holidays, or organizing a food drive.  Committing to these types of activities as a team shows that you care about the community in which you do business and doing what you can to make it a better place to live. Far too often organizations will do these things as a marketing ploy and your team will see right through that. It needs to be genuine and sincere without any strings attached. If you do that it will show your team that you are a kind, compassionate and caring leader. We are in business to make money but we are on this earth to make lives better.  

In order to increase the loyalty among your employees make sure they know you care about them and about the community and find ways to stimulate them. If you do these two things, the best people will want to work for you and when you hold them accountable and demand a lot from them they will find ways to meet your expectations and appreciate the accountability. They will come to work every day committed to the organization and to excellence in performance.