How Do You Keep Your Best Employees
from Flying the Coop?
by Tim Knox, author of
Everything I Know About Business I Learned from my Mama
There is not lack of jobs for good talent today and the best way
to keep your best employees around is to provide them with incentives to stay
on. The end result is of course the continued growth of your business.
Before becoming a full time entrepreneur (or ontamanure, as my daughter calls
me) I worked my share of jobs and had my share of bosses. Some of the jobs I
enjoyed, some I did not. The same is true for the bosses. Some were decent folks
who treated me with the same respect I gave them while others would have been
better suited running a concentration camp. I shouldn't complain, though,
because it was the worst boss I ever had who ultimately motivated me to start my
own business as a way of escaping the shackles of employment.
In a previous column I talked about how the management style (and
personality) of the person in charge plays a big part in the employee turnover
rate. While some bosses will never understand that management by terrorism does
not breed lasting loyalty, I'm glad to report that many companies are now going
out of their way to hang on to the top talent.
Keeping employees happy, motivated, and on the payroll is one of the key
concerns to businesses these days, especially since surveys show that turnover
among managers and sales people has doubled in the last couple of years. This
means that it's an open market for top talent. A good employee can walk out your
door today and have a comparable or better job tomorrow. Which brings up a very
important question: what can you do to keep that person from even thinking about
going to work elsewhere? Gone are the days when the weekly paycheck and two
weeks vacation a year were enough to keep employees happy. With employment at
4.5%, the lowest since mid 2001, employers must come up with irresistible
incentives to keep top talent onboard.
Here are the results of a recent survey by Fortune Magazine on why people leave
their jobs: 30% leave for better compensation and benefits; 27% for a better
career opportunity; 27% for a new experience; 21% are dissatisfied with
opportunities at current job; and 16% desire to change careers or industries.
Money is no longer the major motivator. The potential for added responsibility
and the opportunity to grow are.
According to Fortune the best place to work is search engine giant Google,
which has always been famous for the perks it offers employees, even beyond
those prized stock options that turned many employees into millionaires after
Google's IPO.
Among the perks Google offers its employees are eleven free cafes, unlimited
sick days, five onsite doctors (free office visits), an annual ski trip, onsite
car washes and oil changes, a free laundromat and dry cleaner, a $5,000 subsidy
to buy a hybrid car, and more. On the responsibility and growth side Google
encourages key employees to work as much as 20% of their time on projects that
may someday be folded into the Google toolbox. There's little wonder why Google
gets 1,300 applications per day and enjoys a turnover rate of less than 5%.
What can you do to keep your employees happy even if you don't have Google's
deep pockets? The first thing you must do is find out what makes your employees
tick. What perks would they enjoy? What needs can you meet that would help them
be better employees?
How about an onsite daycare center for working parents? If that's not
feasible offer to pay a percentage of outside daycare. How about paying for all
or part of their health insurance? Or offering educational assistance or paying
for certifications? The company reaps as many benefits of these perks as the
employee does.
Maybe your business isn't large enough to fund those kinds of perks, but how
about a few perks that cost you little or nothing, but can boost moral in a big
way? Offer your employees flexible hours. As long as the job is getting done why
should you care when the work is performed? Studies have shown that employee
productivity can actually go up if you let them set their own hours. Big
companies like Best Buy are doing this with excellent results.
How about letting them work from home? Freedom to work where and when they
want can be a huge benefit to employees. Then there's job sharing, where a
couple of people split a regular 40 hour a week job. And don't forget the
no-brainer stuff like group activities like lunches and cookouts that give
everyone a chance to bond. People don't leave jobs if that's where all their
friends are.
One of my favorite perks is to offer them the opportunity to learn something
new during lunch. It's always a great idea to keep employees challenged and
learning. Why not offer free "lunch and learn" sessions where you have someone
come in to teach your employees new skills while they munch down on free pizza
you provide. Even my dentist does this, so don't tell me you can't.
The point is this: money is no longer the reason employees stay with a
company for 40 years. As the captain of industry it's up to you to figure out
what floats their boats, then make waves.
Tim Knox is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and radio host. Visit his web
site and check out his internet radio show at
http://www.timknoxshow.com.
You can order Tim's new book,
Everything I Know About Business I Learned from my Mama: A Down-Home Approach to Business and Personal Success ,
from Amazon.com.
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