Business Tips
How to retain employees when things get tough at your small business
In order for any business to retain their employee’s employees have to be engaged. Employee engagement refers to how happy and appreciated and the employee feels in their position within your company. The more engaged an employee feels the more likely they are to willingly provide a better level of work towards underemployment in your business.
Surveys are found around 50% of employees in any given company only come to work for the paycheque at the end of the month. This means they come at 9 o’clock do the bare minimum work required until 5 pm whilst patiently watching the clock for lunch to come. There are also 20% of your workers that do absolutely nothing, and just show their face at the office meaning they are completely disengaged. This lacklustre approach towards working for your business will not help it grow.
Retaining employees that put effort into making your business grow is always important. This importance increases greatly when your business is struggling to grow and make profits.
A good workplace offers employees the flexibility to give opinions, communicate freely and the chance to excel and get promoted. Alongside this, there are also multiple other things you can do to retain your staff.
Make your employees feel as if it is their company as much as it is yours:
If your employee feels as if your company is also that it will make them want your company to succeed even more. This is because they are more invested in your company and feel as if the success of your company is also their success.
In order to make your employees feel this way, you must not act as if you are the boss. There is a fine line between letting your employees get away with things and being controlling, but taking on a friendship roll instead of the role of a boss can have many benefits.
By giving employees freedom and ownership of their work, alongside accolades for any work well done will make them feel appreciated, therefore making them feel further invested in your company.
Encourage open communication within your office:
Office politics and boss to employee communication can be quite difficult to handle. Encouraging open communication between you and your employees as well as between employees themselves allows for a more relaxed work environment, encouraging employees to stay working for you.
Open communication can also have many other benefits. If your employee feels comfortable enough to come to you with suggestions and ideas it can allow you to tap into for the markets and also allows for more innovation within your business.
Give your employees more responsibilities:
By allowing your employees to deal with aspects of the business that you are used to controlling, not only frees up more time for you to handle all the more important aspects of your business but also allows them to learn new skills. These new skills can then be used to expand your business further and faster especially when your business is struggling.
By equipping one or a few employees with certain skills that they did not previously possess, it means you do not have to pay money to specialists in that field allowing you to curb spending in difficult times. These responsibilities also give your employees a sense of importance within the organisation making them feel as if it is part of them urging them to stay on regardless of the state of your business.
Constantly checking with employees for feedback:
When trying to keep your business growing or stable you will be introducing new products, strategies and services. While you might be the one that innovates and implement these things initially it will be up to your employees to grow them and promote them.
It is important to ask for feedback on these from the employees that deal with them day to day. If your employees are not happy with the product or the way the sales process is working, then they will not be happy working for your company resulting in a lack of retention. It is important for you to ask for feedback and make any necessary changes in order to not only keep your employees happy but also to ensure the success of your products or services.
Give your employees recognition, praise and bonuses for good work:
By giving your employees recognition and incentives it will not only keep them happy but also the quality of work at high levels. By making them feel invested in their work it will make them want to work for your company regardless of its financial circumstances.
It is also a great way to promote an employee to employee relationships. By allowing employees to recommend each other for recognition and praise as well as awards it allows them to have a better working relationship, therefore, a better atmosphere within your workplace, making it somewhere where people want to stay and work.
Fernando Raymond
