There is no better asset within a company than loyal employees. If you ask a traditional, “old school” businessman, he would tell you first that happier customers translate to a successful business. In contrast, modern businessmen will emphasise that happy and productive employees are the main reason for business success. The truth is somewhere in the middle: you can never make your customers happy (still very important) without making your employees feel good about working for your company. Businesses must retain their employees for the long-term as loyal and experienced employees can be a powerful asset and it can be expensive and time-consuming looking for replacements.

Let’s take a look at some ways by which a company can retain their efficient employees.

Introduce a Performance Management System

Introducing a performance management system for your employees can be a great initiative. Businesses should introduce systems that ensure that people who perform well get rewarded according to their performance level. A good incentive system, fairly administered, will also help reduce any animosity that may arise between employees at the time of performance appraisal.

Regularly Train Your Employees

Businesses should regularly train their employees to make them aware of the new technology and trends in the market. This will not only help the business but also help the employees feel valued and cared for. When a company arranges a training session for its employees, it is actually investing in them to make themselves better equipped to cope with the changing world.

Create A Healthy Working Environment

Workplace environment plays a very significant role in retaining efficient employees. A lot of customers can’t work to their full potential because of an unhealthy workplace environment, which may be cultural or physical. Try to make your workplace as comfortable as possible, e.g. try to have a few pots of plants in the office, have an air conditioner, a furnished building, and never select a windowless room as your main office. As for the non-physical culture, aim for transparency, openness, positivity, work-life balance, encourage different employees to contribute to group discussions, etc.

Regularly Motivate Employees

Everyone likes to hear good things about themselves, and nothing can motivate an employee more than praise from the boss. In fact, someone studies show that regular and sincere praise and recognition is as important to staff motivation as remuneration. Unfortunately, many managers don’t make much effort to motivate staff, but it is essential to maintain good employee performance. Motivation can come in many different ways. You can either give a big motivational speech to your employees, or a handsome bonus for the last quarter or maybe find other ways of motivating people. Financial benefits are a great motivator, help keep the customers in the company, but motivate them to perform well; but to some staff, a company that looks after their general well-being may be a big factor.

Positive and Constructive Feedback

Feedback is of critical importance. If your employees keep performing well but get no recognition from the top management, they are bound to get disheartened. It is therefore not just important but necessary to always give positive and sincere feedback to employees that perform well, but also constructive feedback to staff who are underperforming.

Provide Opportunities To Progress

A lot of people spend decades working in the same position, which may suit both the employee and the employer. However, ambitious people who have the urge to succeed and do better in their professional as well as personal lives, are the ones businesses should care most about. As a business owner, you should create an environment where your employees feel like they have a chance to progress up the career ladder. If your most ambitious employees know that they can get career progression in your company, they will be less inclined to leave and work for your competitors.

For an impartial view of your business’s unexploited areas, contact Flourish to get your FREE Business Performance Assessment.

During a recession, businesses seek to maintain or improve their efficiency to manage lower revenues, contain costs and avoid losses.

By exploring different ways to reduce the impact of a recession, good business owners avoid impulsive decisions that could harm the business during the economic recovery stage. Their focus is on applying cost-benefit analysis to the core business activities.

Using cost-benefit analysis, which estimates and totals up the equivalent money value of the benefits and costs to the business to establish whether the cutback exercise is worthwhile or counterproductive, successful business owners overcome the natural impulse to take action that will quickly reduce direct costs, such as cutting employee headcount and benefits or downsizing to smaller premises without considering the long-term implications. The problem with the cut-costs-first, ask-questions-later approach is that it could easily reduce the business’s ability to respond to increased demand when the economy begins to pick up, because the business would have to invest in new premises or compete to onboard skilled employees, and train them, at a time when the general cost of these factors of production may be increasing.

Acquiring technology to increase efficiency and providing training, coupled with a suitable indoor physical working environment (light, noise, temperature etc.), are just two drivers of employee productivity that will help employees maintain focus and avoid absenteeism, even if they work from home.

The benefit of hiring specialist professionals such as business consultants and accountants is unquestionable; however, understanding precisely what has to be measured, quantified and managed for each specific, unique business, can only come with the help of those involved on a day-to-day basis, including the middle management and representatives of the workforce.

Happier employees make happier customers, even during a downturn. There are plenty of statistics to back this up, but it’s also just plain old common sense.

For an impartial view of your business’s unexploited areas, contact Flourish to get your FREE Business Performance Assessment.