With unemployment rates at a historical low nationally, a big question looms: how do businesses retain their staff? Dr. Trish Petak, Kansas Wesleyan University’s Associate Professor of Business and Accounting, offers a simple answer.

In her paper, “One Thing Managers Need to do to Inspire, Excite, Motivate, and Retain Employees – Recognize Strong Work Performance,” published in the Journal of Business and Educational Leadership Petak emphasizes the need for positive relationships between managers and their staff.

By surveying 63 volunteers, Petak discovered that good management practices, particularly those that involved praise and recognition of employees, almost always resulted in employees expressing positive feelings towards their place of work.

Of the 26.96% of the volunteers who strongly agreed that their management “recognized strong work performance,” upwards of 80% cited feeling more inspired, motivated and likely to stay with their company. Those who answered the same question, but did not agree with the sentiment, reported feeling the opposite about the workplace.

“It’s our job as managers to make others feel good about themselves by recognizing their workplace contributions.”

To read “One Thing Managers Need to do to Inspire, Excite, Motivate, and Retain Employees – Recognize Strong Work Performance,” visit ASBBS.org.

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