Employee Retention: What Businesses Can Do To Keep Workers Around
With today’s rapidly changing and volatile market, it’s more important than ever for small businesses to understand their surroundings and make the most of their resources. As the country’s economy slowly reopens, businesses are faced with the challenge of rehiring workers from a labor force that is unable or otherwise unwilling to work. Small businesses, many of which were forced to close during the pandemic, are unable to offer wages and incentives comparable to large corporations and instead have to rely on other methods to bring in workers. This article aims to highlight a few things small businesses can prioritize to attract and retain employees while not breaking the bank.
What are Major Corporations Doing?
To understand the issue, small businesses must turn to the solutions major corporations have laid out already. Many of these include simple monetary incentives, from McDonald’s offering fifty dollars to anyone that interviews to Schwab offering to match 401K investments. Beyond that, some companies strive to create welcoming workplaces to accomplish the same goals. A prime example is Mars, inc which consistently scores high metrics on employee retention by emphasizing inclusiveness and a friendly, family oriented culture.
What Can Small Businesses Do?
In a post-COVID environment where small businesses may not have the same resources or ability to utilize, many of these strategies adopted by large scale companies are not viable. A small business might not be able to offer money for interviews or push extra benefits like better healthcare or retirement plans. So, how can small businesses utilize their larger counterparts' strategies to maintain a strong workforce? A survey conducted by Citrix Systems found that employees want a few major things: flexibility and communication, diversity and a re-imagination of what measures productivity.
Flexibility and Communication:
According to the Citrix study, 88% of the 2000 surveyed workers and 66% of the 500 HR managers said that flexibility in location or hours were a priority. This has become especially apparent as workers continue to prioritize their health and have become accustomed to remote work. 76% of employees, as stated in the study - have placed a greater emphasis on their family or passions and remote work allows the opportunity to pursue both.
Flexibility doesn’t have to be a costly endeavour for small businesses either. By allowing employees to work from home, small businesses can more efficiently allocate their resources that might have been spent on larger offices or commuting and business travel. Furthermore, it allows the business to tap into a wider and more diverse workforce, something workers are valuing more in the workplace than ever.
Communication:
Finally, how would a company “re-imagine” productivity? It simply starts with communication, specifically between upper management and everyday workers. Small businesses have a distinct advantage here compared to their massive counterparts; with a small, tightly knit workplace, small businesses are capable of understanding its (for example) thirty workers needs and preferences better than PepsiCo’s 291,000 employees. 86% of workers want to feel like they are having an impact on the business - prioritizing this over raw output. With only 69% of businesses implementing this strategy according to surveyed HR representatives, there is significant room to get ahead of the curve by prioritizing learning and development for long term production rather than a culture of short term production, oft times labeled as cutthroat.
Key Takeaways
Culture is key to keeping a happy and productive workplace.
Working remotely isn’t just a fad during unusual times, it’s here to stay and can actually be extremely beneficial to both the employee and employer.
Prioritizing learning/development and good communication is extremely attractive to workers and will provide businesses with an edge over the competition.
As a social impact initiative, Rem and Company also offers free consulting services and resources to small businesses and nonprofits impacted by COVID-19. Our pro-bono consulting teams provide small businesses with the opportunity to identify and prioritize issues facing their business, propose innovative strategies, and facilitate execution. If you are a small business or nonprofit in need of assistance, learn more about how we can help.