After the holidays — i.e., after bonus
time — there is sometimes a nagging fear among business owners and managers that their top employees
will take the money and run. With talent
increasingly at a premium — and jobs
plentiful for many executives — the fear
of losing top workers is not entirely
unwarranted.
“It’s a tight market and good employees
are hard to find,” says Rob Wilson, president of the Employco Group, a Westmont,
Ill.-based firm that handles human
resource outsourcing for 400 small and
medium-sized Midwest companies. “To
avoid unnecessarily losing top talent,
employers need to be proactive and create
a strategy to retain — and motivate — top
employees.”
Smart Business spoke with Wilson on
the four categories that every business
owner must address in order to retain his
or her top employees.
What are the key ways employers can help
keep employees happy and on the job?
There are four main categories that need
to be addressed to retain — and motivate
— employees:
- Competitive compensation
- Competitive employee benefits
- Family-focus benefits and other perks
- Career planning
In each of these areas, the employer
needs to have up-to-date information about
two things: the competition and the
employee.
How can an employer make sure that the
salary is competitive?
The first step is to make sure the employee has a concise job description. You also
need to look at the competitiveness of the
bonuses and raises. Are you on par with
your competition — or under? If you are
under the average compensation for a particular job description, what other advantages do you have over your competition?
If the salary is close or equal for your employees and those of competing companies, what usually tips the scales — in
terms of an employee staying or leaving —
resides in the three other areas.
Your second category, employee benefits, is
usually a hot button for many employees.
What if an employer can’t afford to fully fund
these benefits?
Start-up or small companies that are trying to attract talent from larger companies
need to realize they have to offer a competitive salary and some kind of health
benefit package — this is a basic requirement. Smaller companies usually cannot
compete in this category with large companies, but there are many creative options
available today that won’t break the bank.
There are health insurance cafeteria plans
that work by using an employee’s pretax
dollars to pay for his or her portion of
insurance premiums.
Outside of the typical health insurance, a
business can also provide discounted dental or eye care plans, home, auto and even
pet insurance. These kinds of options are
what will set your business apart from the
competition — even if the employer does-n’t pay for the premiums.
There are other employee benefits that companies can offer, such as 401(k) plans
and 529 college savings plans, which, surprisingly, are not offered by many small
businesses. Again, there are creative ways
to fund this — including matching or non-matching, or even profit-sharing. You can
also offer discounted theme park tickets,
car rentals or health club memberships.
Your third and fourth categories are family-focus benefits and career planning. Could
you explain creative options for these areas?
Family-focus benefits include flextime,
job sharing, child care benefits and
telecommuting, to name a few. Workers
have different needs in this area, so it is
important that employers reach out and
ask employees what would work best for
their particular circumstance. For example, a single parent may want to come into
work earlier and leave earlier to pick up a
child from school. Others may want to
have a telecommuting option when a child
is home sick.
Employee recognition also falls under
this category and can include company celebrations for anniversaries or the completion of a major project. Celebrate accomplishment large and small.
In career planning, you need to have a
one-on-one conversation with employees
because, like family-focus benefits, one
size does not fit all. These conversations
can occur during performance appraisals,
which ideally happen more than once a
year. This is the time to ask the employee
about his or her career aspirations and to
set benchmarks to help that employee
reach those goals. Create opportunities for
employees to learn and grow and link the
goals of the organization with the goals of
each individual in it.
ROB WILSON is president of the Employco Group
(www.employco.com), a division of The Wilson Companies.
Employco handles human resource outsourcing for 400 small
and medium-sized Midwest companies. Reach him at (630) 286-7345 or by e-mail at [email protected].