Depending on what industry you’re in, you may find it difficult to find the right candidates or even to retain your best employees. From salaries, to commute times, all the way to employee engagement, there are several factors for employee retention rates. One way to help keep top talent in your workplace is to know your employees.

While there might be a traditional separation of executives and managers from their employees, there doesn’t need to be. By learning what employees like about their jobs, what they don’t like, what they spend their free time doing, and what their career goals are, you can better connect with them.

Here are three reasons why you need to know your employees and make better connections:

1. Improve Retention Rates

It’s no secret that retention rates can affect the activities of your business. From a loss of productivity to the costs of hiring a new employee, high turnover rates have a huge impact on your business functions. By taking the time to get to know employees, you increase engagement and can better satisfy employee needs. Don’t just say hi to employees. Instead, encourage them to communicate with you on ways to improve the work environment and other innovative ideas they may have. Open and honest communication between managers and employees can go a long way.

2. Accelerate Growth

You could have a star employee and not know it. You could lose that star employee and lose innovation, productivity, and opportunity to grow your company. If an employee isn’t comfortable or feels like they don’t matter at work, then they’ll keep their ideas to themselves. When this happens, it could mean losing out on opportunities to grow, expand, improve processes, and ultimately grow revenue. Instead, talk with your employees, establish communication channels, and put effort into making them understand you are interested in their ideas.

3. Increase Productivity

While it was mentioned earlier, opening up communication channels with your employees and getting to know their needs can increase and improve productivity. By knowing your employees, they are more likely to care about the work they are doing, which will increase their productivity. When productivity increases, oftentimes, profits increase. By taking a few minutes every day or every week to talk to employees, you have the potential to see dramatic rises in productivity.

How do you get to know your employees? What are some of the employee engagement success stories at your companies? Leave your stories and suggestions in the comments section below!