It’s one thing to hire the employees you want and need to move your vision to fulfillment, but it’s another thing to make sure those people are fruitful and satisfied to the point where they stay with your company long enough to make the impact you want. The employee-employer relationship is such that there is mutual benefit. The employer meets all required expectations while the employee attacks key result areas to deliver results commensurate with the benefits accruing to their name. When there is a gap between expectations and delivery on either side, friction is inevitable, usually resulting in the premature termination of the relationship. The common keys that I am writing about are part of what I have faced in the corporate world both as an employee for about 8 years and as an employer for close to 9 years. I have left jobs for one of the reasons below or I have certainly lost some employees for not observing or implementing one of the keys below. The longer you keep your employees, the better it is for you, as you don’t have to keep training new people yourself, but instead have existing employees who carry the business genetics continue to pass them down. I’ve written about how important it is to keep a client you get, but just as important is the fact that you need to keep every employee you recruit.
Some keys to keep the employee happy
1. Deliver what you promised – Employers sometimes make the mistake of overpromising employees and underdelivering. If an employee joined under the pretense that you, as the employer, promised certain benefits and perks, any disparity between the promise and the reality on the ground is immediately (almost automatically) rejected. You would rather under-promise and over-deliver than lure people in with lucrative contracts without the underlying tangible results. Gone are the days when employees could hold on to pies in the sky. Keep the promises you wrote down and see how much retention you get.
2. Recognize and reward good performance – Every human being has a built-in sense of desire for recognition. You will realize that there are those who always meet the objectives, always early for work, always precise and committed to their work. Take the time to notice which employees contribute the most to the well-being of the business. Make it a habit to reward good performance, also publicly. Create in employees a sense of competence. Be impartial with your reward system. If everyone is doing well, have a Friday brunch or party to celebrate. When employees feel valued, they will stick with you through storms. Promotion should be based on merit, not who is close to the CEO or departmental leader.
3. Offer opportunities for personal growth and professional advancement – Employees would rather stay with an employer who always has something new to tell them than a place where they are stuck in terms of learning something new. When everything becomes a routine, when you can do the work in your sleep, keep in mind that those who always want to learn something new regularly become a little restless and flea-crazy right away. Organize some short courses, seminars, etc. that improve the effectiveness of employees in their respective work situations. Employees need to be able to see where they fit in once they work harder. What job opportunity exists when they advance academically and gain the required experience?
4. Sell them vision and hope regularly – As the leader of the organization, you should always speak up and paint a vivid picture of the future of the organization for your employees. Once employees share with you about where they see the organization going, your retention will be tremendous. Never assume that you and your employees are on the same page. Assumption is the lowest form of knowledge and therefore you should avoid it.
5. Offer job security – When they see the company grow, they have more confidence that their work will be available when they enter another day. They don’t go home wondering if they’ll be with you tomorrow. Give security and affirmation all the time. When leaders become so focused on “present day” issues, they fail to see beyond the challenges and therefore even their conversation becomes somewhat negative. At that point, employees think about jumping on the next ship that doesn’t look like it’s going to sink anytime soon, although it may have some lower values. Security is what they want from those above them.
6. Pay well and on time – Very few employees come to work as volunteers who do not want to be paid. In fact, if they volunteer, they don’t even expect a salary. However, most employees want to get paid and that too within the expected time frame. Once payday becomes guesswork, people are unable to plan their lives accordingly, messing up their budgeting process, and having to deal with finding alternative means to meet family needs. If you don’t pay well, they won’t pay attention to your statements. They will just move on without even giving you enough advance notice. This is the number one cause of people moving from one job to another. Some can handle tough and demanding positions as long as their pay is good and they are always on time. Only a few employees stick with their employees based on seeing potential in the leaders and in the company.
7. Be fair and equitable in your dealings – When double standards arise in the way discipline is handled, employees always want to migrate to a better place. They always watch how you do things for the “sake of tomorrow”. When Peter steals $100 and gets instantly fired by the boss and a secretary steals $500 and gets away with a warning, it’s clear there’s no set pattern to how justice is served in the workplace. No one should be immune to the systems you put in place. You cannot find him being selective in terms of rules for different classes of people in the organization.
8. Provide an avenue for appeal – The employee has every right to obtain a hearing with the employer to address work related issues. The open door policy must be a reality. Once employees feel they can contribute without feeling victimized, then a good family culture is being built where everyone’s input is valued. When they feel that a decision made is not the right one, they can come to you and talk to you about it. If the door closes in their face, they are left with no other way to plan their own schemes in their own closed doors (since you have set the pattern of people dealing with problems in their own closed offices). If they can’t talk to their own CEO, they will find other ways to appeal, like strike action, just to get attention. You’d rather be available to hear for yourself than it becomes a topic the press would love to cover. If employees are made to feel that they add value to the organization, then they feel a sense of belonging and stay.
9. The credibility of core leadership is important – The credibility of the people at the top shapes the culture and framework of the company. Are they people of their word, who does mean yes? Do they keep their word no matter what? Can the promises they make be trusted? Credibility will keep employees safe, happy, and trusting their leaders. Once credibility is lost, there is complete disregard for leadership in the workplace, which is a seed for organizational collapse.
10. Generates transparency and levels of trust – It is a mistake to isolate employees from the realities that the company is going through. When the company is doing well, employees need to be informed. When things are not where they are supposed to be, employees deserve to know, as they are important stakeholders and sometimes the bearers of the very solutions we desperately need. Be transparent about what is happening. Secrecy destroys trust. If you have to speculate, draw conclusions based on assumptions, and then don’t blame them when they conclude that going is the way to go.