Employee perks your small business can afford for better productivity
One of the biggest problems for small business owners is employee retention. If you’re wondering how to solve this concern, this article may help.
When you run a small business, you cannot compete with the benefits and salaries that government employers or large companies can provide. However, you could provide some perks to your employees to make working at your small business look more attractive than many big businesses.
As a starting point, it’s important to develop a good reputation as an employer to attract and retain the best candidates and employees. But this alone is not enough.
Here are some suggestions for perks that will help you attract more exciting talent and retain your existing employees.
Support and empathy
Sometimes you may notice that some of your employees are upset due to personal issues. You will also come across situations in which an employee may need to leave on very short notice due to personal reasons.
You can make a positive difference in the employee’s life by listening to their problems and providing active support. The feeling of a “sense of family” will help bind them to your company.
Ensure flexible work
Offering flexible working hours is one of the most attractive perks for many employees. This will help them maintain a healthier work-life balance.
The pandemic has forced the world into lockdown. So offering a work-from-home option to employees will help them stay safe. This will also help you retain many employees who have a long commute, or are trying to juggle school and nursery hours. You could even offer four-day working weeks and allow employees to leave early to pick up their children from daycare.
Development and training
Talented employees are usually ambitious and are look forward to learning new skills to help them in their careers. However, as a small business owner, you may not be able to afford to provide in-house development and training programs or even special small business training software.
Instead, you can motivate your employees to participate in training programs elsewhere and reimburse their training fees.
Casual dress code
Most large organizations have a casual dress code on Fridays. Being a small business owner, you can implement a “no formals” policy. Several startups implement this across the globe, and you can do the same. However, make sure your employees look decent (casuals don’t mean wear partywear – you get the idea).
Food and drink
In a survey performed by Peapod, 83% of the office workers stated that their employers’ fresh and healthy snacks are among the major perks of their job. Providing healthy snacks will also help your employees re-energize to continue their work.
Consider providing these snacks:
- Yoghurt
- Cheese
- Nuts
- Fruit like apples and bananas
- Dried fruits
Many people also love having a good cup of coffee as a refreshment. So you can also consider investing in a good quality coffee machine. Giving your employees special meals (like pizza or Chinese food) once a month or on special days works like a charm as well.
Volunteer your time
Many people would like to do volunteer work, however they are not able to do so due to their busy schedules. You can help your employees to give back by giving them a specific number of hours per week or month to do volunteer work. This will make your employees happy and will be good for the community as well.
Ensure timely salaries
This may not exactly be a perk, but it can ensure high levels of employee retention. One of the many things an employee looks forward to is a timely salary. Yes, managing your employees’ salary may have been easier in the past when you had only five employees.
However, as your company grows, it becomes important to ensure the employees are paid on time and have all the data of the same. For this, you can consider Payroll Outsourcing. This is the most effective way to ensure everything goes as planned.
How can you keep your staff happy?
Operating a small business can come with many challenges. However, having content &and happier employees can make your work easy. By following some of the tips mentioned in the article, you can have happy employees, which will eventually lead to a successful business.
