Keeping your best staff is an important part of growing your business – but wage rises, which can hit your margins, aren’t the only way to keep your best workers happy.
Having a happy, high-performing and driven workforce is an important part of any business. But sometimes keeping your workers can be costly. However, there are ways to retain your best staff without resorting to simple pay rises.
Here are 5 ways to keep your best staff happy without breaking the bank.
1. Shares in the company
While you may not be able to offer them the wages you feel they deserve, maybe you could offer them shares in your company. Not only does it give them an investment in the firm, it also shows how much you value their services.
This works especially well for start-ups. A small share could end up being worth hundreds of thousands of pounds – or more – if the company becomes a success.
2. Be proud of where they work
Remember that people are spending a third of their day at work, so want to feel like they’re doing something they can be proud of. Without pride in their work your employees will quickly lose interest and move on.
Pride doesn’t just have to come from the work though – it can be how the company is viewed in the public eye, how the bosses treat the employees and how success is celebrated in the firm.
A good rule of thumb of how to instil pride in a person’s work is to make sure they want to do a good job for them, not for the boss. It’s not about doing well because you might get fired, but doing well because you believe in the work.
3. Flexibility
One of the things you can offer for free is flexible working. This helps people to adapt their work around their life and not the other way round.
A Chartered Institute of Personnel Development survey found that flexible working was the top benefit when it came to employee retention with 76% of managers admitting it was the reason they introduced it.
Not only that, but flexible workers tends to be more productive so you’ll be getting more for your money as an employer.
4. Empowerment
People like to feel in charge and if you give your employees a feeling of empowerment they will be happier with their working life. Let them drive the direction of projects or their working day.
To empower your staff you could:
• Reward them for developing their skills
• Provide a safety net if their plans fail
• Give them a clear definition of their role
• Give them goals
5. Development
Going hand-in-hand with empowerment is personal development. People want to be able to easily develop their skills. Bringing in training companies can be expensive, so look within your team and see if anyone has any skills they can share with the rest of your staff.
There are also lots of online training courses at affordable prices – make sure your employees know about them and that the training can be incorporated into their working day. The least you can do is to let them have time off if they have decided to go on their own training course.
