As a business owner, one of the top priorities to promote the success of your business is to hire the right people. Acquiring the right staff ensures you can trust your employees to get the work done right and treat your customers well. With many job postings receiving hundreds of resumes, it may seem like employers have their pick of qualified employees. But that doesn’t mean the best candidates are applying for your positions, or that they will stay long term once you’ve hired them. In order to attract and keep the best employees, you need the right hiring and employment strategies.
Get the Word Out
When you have a position to fill, make sure the right people see it. Posting a job is no longer just for specialized job websites or classified ads. Make use of social media like Twitter or LinkedIn to advertise your company and your open positions. Instead of a dry job ad, use the opportunity to express who you are and what your company is about. If you are genuine and passionate, you will attract great candidates.
Think About Teams
Don’t approach every hire as if it exists in a vacuum. In order for your business to thrive, your staff needs to work as a team—especially if you have a small business and the employees work closely together. Having a well-established team is key in encouraging your new hires and established employees to stay with the company. When interviewing, look for indications that the candidates are great team players as well as effective when working on their own. To promote working as a team with your existing staff, match up inexperienced individuals with seasoned employees to work as mentors or make a point of mentoring your employees yourself. When something great happens for your business, let everyone share the good fortune and the credit.
Keep Tabs on Workloads
It’s common for diligent workers to continually absorb more of the business’s workload, and if this process goes on too long it can easily lead to burnout. Keep in touch with your staff and look for signs of overloaded employees. If you notice one of your staff is overworked, take steps to resolve the situation and don’t let it persist too long.
Offer Growth Opportunities
While overworking staff is a bad idea, great employees are also going to want opportunities to grow. Don’t forget about developing your staff after they are hired. Giving employees assignments or work that is slightly beyond their skill level is a great way to encourage growth and train them to take on more responsibility in the business. It’s important to look for the sweet spot,though, where an employee is challenged by the new work but not overwhelmed. It is also vital to encourage and express your trust in your employees, while giving them the resources and training they need to rise to the next level.
Find Creative Ways to Recognize and Reward Employees
People who do good work don’t always do it for the praise, but it’s still important that your employees know you recognize and appreciate the work they do. It doesn’t take a complicated employee reward or incentive program to let your staff know you appreciate them. Instead, look for creative and meaningful ways to reward your employees, especially ways that bolster teamwork and appreciation for other staff members.
Quality Compensation and Benefits
Money is not the only thing that motivates great employees by a long shot, but compensating your staff well is still important in order to hold onto them. Regularly review your compensation packages and offer raises to your employees. If you want the best talent, you must recognize its value and be willing to pay for it.
Provide a Positive Work Environment
Even with great compensation, a miserable work environment isn’t going to help you keep the best employees. The environment and attitude of your company starts with you, and fostering a positive and enjoyable work environment is one of the best investments you can make for employee retention and satisfaction. From time to time, go out of your way to connect with your employees and encourage them. Don’t focus on the negatives of business situations, not only because it creates a non-constructive work environment but because it also quashes the creativity needed to find great business solutions.
If you have other managers in your company, make sure they follow your lead in creating a great work environment. Having a negative, nitpicking supervisor or micromanager is one thing that will definitely drive away great employees. Provide appropriate training for managers in positive management skills, and mentor them in being supportive and positive for the employees they lead.
Justin Brown is an insurance marketing expert working as the Marketing Content Manager for the Bankrate Insurance companies NetQuote, InsureMe, and AgentInsider. He provides insurance agents and risk management advisors with the latest news and marketing tips to help them grow their business.
Great article about ways to attract and keep great employees – one of the key challenges of every small business owner today. I would add one thing to your article and that’s the importance of Onboarding to the process of hiring and keeping good employees. Julian Scadden from Nexstar’s Training Team recently published a blog post on the importance of your onboarding process to the success of your new hire relationship. As Julian says, “I once heard the saying that, ‘An employee’s best day is their interview’, because he says all the right things and has on his best attitude. This could be true of your company as well. Onboarding is the secret to how to keep good employees once you hire them.” Combined with all of the tips you provide here, you have the makings for a great success recipe for hiring and retaining great employees!
I advocate avoiding employees.
The alternative is contractors who are paid upon completion of deliverables that meet agreed requirements.
You don’t have to sit around and wait for great talent – you can always approach them yourself. While you’re not guaranteed a yes, you can always plant the seed that you’re interested in someone for when they decide they want to change employment.
Thank you for always helping Bosses hear what they need to hear. Anyone who owns a business should read, understand and implement this article!
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You’re right on point! One of the major reasons Henry Ford was able to attract the best auto engineering staff during his time at the helm of Ford Motor Company, was because he compensated them generously. That’s worthy of emulation.
Moreover, training employees enables them to grow personally and professionally, which in turn is beneficial to the employer.