Over the last three years, the workforce has dramatically shifted how bosses engage their employees. Some bad habits of the past just don't – and shouldn't – exist anymore.

The importance of emotional currency – what makes people feel supported, valued, developed and appreciated – has become a hot commodity for impacting businesses and satisfying customers.

Workplace values like autonomy, flexibility, trust, transparency and ownership – unheard of a few years pre-pandemic – have quickly become the norm, thanks to the rise of recent phenomena as The Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting. 

3 things to stop doing

If you're a student of leadership research and best practices, you should indisputably recognize that there are things people in management roles just don't do anymore. Now, if you're a manager reading this, I urge you to consider the following.

To really motivate and connect with employees in a way that leads to business results, there are three bad habits you should absolutely get rid of:

1. Ignoring your workers

If you're hoping to keep your best people engaged, start talking about their work regularly. Younger generations, especially, want feedback about their performance at least monthly, if not more frequently.

They also want mentors to help them feel more engaged with their organization and to help them to learn on the job. The focus for managers worried about carving out time to spend with their employees should be on making their feedback shorter, more frequent and constructive.

2. Treating your workers like numbers

The most successful leaders care enough to meet their employees' needs as valued human beings, not as numbers in a daily transaction. Unfortunately, every day, employees are hired in stressful, fear-based, politically-charged environments to produce results with little in return for their efforts.

Cogs in the wheel, basically. While a bigger paycheck helps, they are also looking for a trustworthy environment, bosses that respect them and a place safe to express their voice.

3. Calling all the shots without seeking input from the team

Since employees are the ones most intimately acquainted with how things work in the trenches of their daily routine, leaders will gain their trust by coming to them first for input, buy-in, advice and strategy.

Coming to employees to ask about what's working and not working fosters a culture of trust, where followers feel safe enough to contribute ideas and share concerns that have value and can help resolve situations.

Things have changed

What employees need and expect in exchange for their work has greatly changed. Salaries and perks alone no longer motivate as they once did. People now have deeper aspirations in their work that were unimaginable before Millennials arrived on the scene.

Employees of every generation want to feel valued, grow and develop, be part of a respectful and ethical community of work, have ownership of decisions and feel appreciated. That's reason enough to want to get up in the morning and run to work, not run away from it.

Inc