The number of managers in the U.S. alone, who have responsibility for overseeing the work of others, is roughly 24 million, Harvard Business Review reports. Research conducted for the writing of my recent book, “The Employee-Centric Manager, 8 Keys to People-Management Effectiveness,” reveals that more than 70% of these managers have received either no people management training at all, or the training was capped at just four hours.

Across the board, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic placed extra burdens on managers at all levels within organizations, and in the pandemic’s wake, managers often face the additional challenge of being able to find and keep the workers they need to get the job done. Short staffing remains a problem across most industries, with the big tech sector being a rare exception to this short staffing trend.

One way that managers can improve in their ability to motivate and retain their employees is by listening to what their employees most want from them. Here are eight keys:

1. Show support and understanding: This means being present and accessible, providing help in daily activities, and being encouraging. But it is also about listening, being considerate and friendly, and finding solutions to employees’ challenges. Do your managers:

• Provide employees with the help and support they need to do their jobs?
• Follow through on employee concerns?

2. Treat employees with dignity and respect: This involves treating employees as competent adults who want to make useful contributions, trusting their experience and respecting their diversity of thought. Do your managers:

• Show confidence in employees’ ability to make good decisions?
• Take care to support employees’ mental and physical well-being?

3. Communicate clear performance expectations: This refers to defining what successful performance looks like, communicating work priorities and providing clear directions. Do your managers:

• Give useful feedback to employees on how well they are performing their jobs?
• Connect the work of the employee to the organization’s overall goals?

4. Provide recognition. This is about complimenting and praising good work, giving employees credit for their good ideas, and acknowledging employees for their loyalty to the job and the organization. Do your managers:

• Show appreciation in ways that employees find meaningful?
• Provide recognition to employees in a timely way?

5. Reward performance contributions: Employees bring their knowledge, skills, abilities and motivation to the job. In turn, they expect to be rewarded with a fair paycheck and with more training and opportunities for growth. Do your managers:

• Communicate to employees how their compensation and the path to career advancement is determined?
• Reward deserving employees with training and development opportunities?

6. Solve problems and make good decisions. Managers being good at problem-solving, and decision-making allows employees to get their work done better, faster, and without unnecessary delays. Do your managers:

• Encourage employees to participate in decisions affecting their work?
• Explain to employees the rationale for the decisions they make?

7. Be fair and just: This involves treating employees in an equal, objective and consistent manner. Employees want to be judged based on performance, not based on their individual characteristics. Do your managers:

• Enforce work rules consistently with all employees?
• Divide the workload fairly among employees?

8. Be honest and trustworthy: This means being sincere, frank, and candid while laying out the facts as they are. Employees want a manager they can rely on, one who displays integrity. Do your managers:

• Keep the commitments they make to employees?
• Admit to employees when they have made a mistake?

These keys were extracted from employee responses to a simple question: What is the most important thing you want from your immediate boss? The data were collected from a global sample of employees representing 27 countries around the world. These are the eight universal attributes employees most want in their managers. They define the employee-centric manager.

Research also demonstrates that managers who display these attributes create great outcomes for employees, namely, a positive work experience and very high levels of employee engagement, as measured by their satisfaction with and pride in their employer, commitment to stay, and their willingness to apply discretionary effort to get the job done.