Seven ways you need to invest in keeping your best employees
Your employees are crucial to the success of your business. So this means you need to find ways to keep them happy – and encourage them to stay with you.
Retaining your best workers will help you to increase your product sales and customer satisfaction, conduct effective succession planning, and maximise your organisational knowledge and learning.
Losing them, on the other hand, will cost you dear. Not only will you need to invest time and money in replacing them and training their replacements, but until you’ve re-filled their position and your new hire is up to speed (that’s if you can find someone who will perform at their level) the rest of your team will need to take up the slack – putting extra pressure on them and taking them away from some of their own tasks and responsibilities.
So it’s worth investing in your employees and ensuring they’re happy working with you, and can see a future in your business. In the long run, spending money on motivated, productive and content staff is cheaper than replacing unhappy employees.
To help ensure your employees are happy to remain with you, here are seven ways you can invest in them.
1) Nurture their personal and professional development
If your employees can’t see any opportunity to develop at work, they’ll soon feel like they’re heading towards a dead end.
So, before they become disengaged and start looking for better opportunities elsewhere, consider investing in your team’s personal and professional development.
One way of doing this is to use a tool such as an Individual Development Plan (IDP) that will help them to set and reach their own individual goals. Monthly check-ins between your employees and their managers will ensure real and consistent progress, and hold your team accountable to their goals while providing them with the direction they need for continued improvements.
2) Quickly integrate new employees
One of the biggest reasons why employees quit within their first year on the job is the lack of engagement. If they don’t feel fully engaged with the work they’re doing, and the organisation as a whole, they won’t stay with you for the long haul.
So, to reduce employee turnover, establish a clear schedule and agenda for their first day at work. Give them an overview of your company and business values and allow them to ask questions; they need to gain insight into how they can contribute to your company’s vision and mission.
Finally, provide them with opportunities to meet and interact with their coworkers, to help them forge positive relationships with their colleagues.
3) Expectations for each role must be clearly set
If you want to avoid unequal expectations and misunderstandings that may give rise to conflict and resentment, ensure that you set clear expectations for each role from the outset.
And you can start doing this during the hiring process by discussing job goals and responsibilities. When people have a full picture of, and accurate expectations for the role they’re hired to do, they’re more likely to be happy in it – and stay with your company.
4) Make work-life balance your priority
If your employees burn out it will impact their performance – and your bottom line. So it’s essential you invest in a culture and initiatives that promote a healthy work-life balance.
It’s worth noting that several surveys have showed that employees value work-life balance more than a pay rise, and given a choice between the two, many would opt for flexible working over more money.
So consider how you can find ways to ensure that your staff are able to thrive at work, and can easily balance their home and work lives.
5) Organise team-building activities
If your employees are in happy teams and enjoy healthy work relationships – and even friendships – with their colleagues, they’ll be more likely to stay working for you.
And one way to help foster these relationships is by organising team-building activities. Activities that get teams to work together in the pursuit of a common goal will help them to bond. It’s also a great idea to give your employees something to be excited about every year by doing an annual team building day offsite.
During these events, teams can have the opportunity to escape the daily grind at the office and have fun together.
6) Reevaluate pay
You can make your office as fun as you like, but if you don’t pay your best people competitively you’ll struggle to keep them. You’ll also find it hard to replace people with the best candidates
So make sure you’re up to date on the out the average pay ranges that are based on industry, role and location. And conduct regular performance and pay reviews.
Reward exceptional performance and results too. If someone brings in more business – either directly or indirectly – through their efforts, let them know you have noticed and value it through both words and money.
Not only will this incentivise people to go the extra mile for your business, but in the long run it will be cheaper than trying to replace your star employees.
7) Offer benefits that are tailored to their needs
It’s important to offer your employees perks that matter to them. Having generic rewards and benefits that people don’t really want won’t encourage them to stay with your company.
So try to think about benefits that make people’s lives easier, better and more fun. For example, you can offer workers who regularly put in overtime a service that will help them save time for their personal lives, such as dry cleaning, car wash or even childcare services.
As well as the obvious company benefits, such as private medial care and insurance, why not add in benefits such as membership of local sports centres, or monthly bonuses towards activities they personally enjoy.
Encouraging your employees to pursue hobbies they enjoy (especially if they have a physical element to them) will also improve their mental and physical health, which can have positive knock-on effect on productivity and absenteeism at work.
You may even find that the financial advantages to this may outweigh the cost of offering the benefits in the first place.
Need help to invest in attracting and retaining the best people for your company? Contact the lending experts at SMB Compass on (888) 853-8922 or email them at info@smbcompass.com.
Photo by AllGo – An App For Plus Size People
