Finding quality, hard-working employees can be tricky but it can be much harder to keep them if you don’t put employee happiness and well being above trying to keep the costs down on wages. Employee retention isn’t just an element of business, it’s a core part of ensuring your business runs smoothly and without difficulty or putting additional stress on the remainder of your workforce – which can quickly lead to resentment and more leavers. Here we discuss methods for ensuring, not only employee happiness but a stronger workforce and fewer disagreements that could lead to an employee becoming unhappy and choosing to leave.
Salary Survey
Are you offering competitive wages according to the industry at large? If your first thought was “how would I know?” then it’s likely that you are not. Salary surveys are an excellent way of ensuring that your staff are being paid fairly and competitively, which gives them fewer reasons to find disagreement with their role or responsibilities. While companies aren’t likely to reach out to their direct competitors and ask them what they are paying their staff (although this could encourage a better more united world with fairer pay for all) they can utilize a Pay Review company or professional that has the resources to carry out an industry salary survey.
Related: Master The Art Of Hiring The Best Employees
Salary surveys can be difficult to carry out with little to no experience in doing so, for instance, matching job roles and responsibilities to ensure you are comparing like for like. If you are trying to offer a competitive salary for a facilities manager role, you want to ensure you are comparing wages to a job with similar responsibilities, even if it doesn’t hold the same title. Here is where a pay review company will take all the hassle out of working this out, ensuring a facilities manager salary survey provides you with relevant, up-to-date information that allows you to make an informed decision about staff remuneration.
A Work/Life Balance
This is talked about a lot in the world of self-care and motivation however too often does it solely fall on the shoulders of the employees themselves when truthfully, it is a shared responsibility with both the employer and employee. Employees can often find themselves shying away from taking annual leave or personal time if they feel like they cannot leave their responsibilities for a day.
Following the pandemic lockdown and the encouragement for everyone to work from home. More staff are aware of their ability to work from home productively, even during a stressful time when their attention is typically split between ensuring the safety of their home and completing their regular work. Returning to the workplace will mean a few things for staff; more time spent commuting and potentially dealing with traffic, the need to use public transport and be in close quarters with others and the potentially unsafe environment that a small or tightly packed workplace can bring.
Employers should work with staff to find out what they expect from returning to the workplace and whether an agreement can be made for a work from home/work from the office split. Not only will staff have greater respect for their employer for recognizing their ability to work from home and satisfy their job requirements but it frees employees up for spending more time with their family and improving the work/life balance overall.
Resources for Personal Development
Most people want to continue developing their personal skills and abilities during their professional life, whether this is further training, experience days or weekends or other methods of development. Working full-time and trying to maintain a home quickly takes away much of an individual’s free time, making it more difficult for them to find the time and energy to learn new skills or develop themselves further. Providing staff opportunities for training, funding access to platforms such as Skillshare and offering resources for personal development will help your staff see they are a key asset to your business and you respect their want to improve themselves.
Your staff are the life force that your business needs to keep working strongly and shouldn’t be neglected. Especially during this turbulent time when the economy is struggling and the world over is feeling the strain of the pandemic and will be for some years to come.