Ditch the gift cards and office pizza parties. You can motivate others at work simply by picking up the phone, according to Verizon Communications CEO Hans Vestberg.
“On the back of my [work] badge, I have 30 names. These are the people that make a difference, that I need to know at Verizon, internal or external,” Vestberg, 58, said at the Fast Company Innovation Festival 2023 on Tuesday. He talks to each of those people “once a week,” he added.
Thirty phone calls per week can sound like a lot, but the gesture strengthens his workplace relationships and helps him get “110%” of effort from his staff, said Vestberg. It helps him “break down the barrier” between himself and his colleagues, especially those from “different backgrounds, born in another country or [of a] different ethnicity.”
On the calls, Vestberg congratulates the person on any good work they’ve done and asks simple questions like “How are you today?” and “What are you working on this week?”
Vestberg isn’t the only boss who does this: Twice per week, GoodRx co-CEO Doug Hirsch takes a 45-minute informal walk around the block with one of his nearly 800 employees, he told CNBC Make It last year.
“It’s a way of climbing over that barrier between myself and employees,” Hirsch said. “I now have all these friends out there that actually want to work here, work together and get our job done. They also feel more comfortable sharing their ideas with me, and some end up being really great.”
Bosses should make more of an effort to have regular chats with their employees, research shows. Camaraderie and peer relationships are the No. 1 reason workers go the extra mile, a 2014 report from employee engagement firm TINYpulse found. The category beat out other options like an intrinsic desire to do a good job, feeling encouraged and recognized, and money.
Seventy percent of workers say they want more daily or weekly check-ins than they’re currently getting, according to a 2022 report from RedThread Research, a research services company.
Indeed, CEOs and other leadership experts increasingly cite communication and empathy as an essential skill in today’s workplace. Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor, for example, told Make It last month that he wouldn’t have gotten his job without it.
“In terms of getting me to where I am now, empathy is key,” he said. “The way that you communicate with people, the way that you show that you care, the way that you show that you want to help build people up and empower them, those all go a long way.”
“It helps you become a better leader ... and really helped me get to where I am today,” he added.