HOW TO RETAIN YOUR GOOD EMPLOYEES....

Implement Perks

Allowing employees to telecommute is one way to ensure they will want to work for your company, especially by saving them on travel time and gas. You can also offer free dry-cleaning services, foods and beverages and even free delivery and pickup in the office to save your employees time when mailing items or having packages delivered.

Contests and Incentive Programs

Hosting contests and launching incentive programs is another way to boost the morale in your workplace, helping to retain employees for years to come. You can have competitive sales contests for money, weight loss contests or even incentive programs that are relevant between other employees in the office. Offering cash prizes, coupons, gift cards or even time off can all be decided by you or the employees who are currently employed.

Communicate Openly

Communicating openly and positively with both managers and additional employees of your company will help to create a better atmosphere and better workplace morale overall. Allow employees to ask questions and make suggestions to help them feel as if they are part of the team and can truly contribute to building your business together. The more open you allow your employees to communicate, the less trapped or restricted they will feel, often encouraging them to stay to help grow the business even more.

Promote Employees From Within

It is important to promote employees yourself from within the company to give incentives to other employees that there is room to grow and more to potentially earn based on their performance and current position with you. Promoting employees from within will also show your entire staff that you are committed and dedicated to rewarding those who work hard to grow the business whether they are increasing sales, attracting new customers or maintaining their client base regularly.

Programs for Managers

Implementing programs for managers to help coach them in how to effectively communicate with staff members in all positions is highly recommended. You should require your managers to properly coach and guide other employees at all times whether they are training them or simply learning new a software programs. Ask managers to keep track of employees and their contributions to ensure you are promoting the right individuals to keep your business afloat and growing.

Financial Rewards

Offering financial rewards to employees such as annual raises is an incentive to keep employees working for you longer. You can also implement various performance goals that can help increase motivation and morale throughout your entire staff in order to earn more whether they are making sales or obtaining clients. Bonuses for holidays and the best salesmen are also additional incentives that will keep your employees happy long-term

Providing Competitive Benefits

When you provide employees with benefits such as life insurance , you are more likely to keep them working for you for longer periods of time. Providing additional perks such as a retirement plan and flextime is also sought out by employees who are looking for a company they can count on long-term to provide financial stability for them and their own families.

Conducting Exit Interviews

When an employee is planning to transfer or leave your business, an exit interview can also turn into a “stay” interview, giving you the opportunity to ask why the employee has chosen to leave and whether it is possible for you to accommodate their needs and wants out of the position. You can potentially negotiate to help retain employees that you deem valuable to the company during the process of an exit interview.

How HR Can Become a Corporate Boardroom Player......

When we ask corporate directors what responsibilities are most important to them, they always point to reviewing the performance of key executives and providing for orderly succession.

As this trend grows in importance, the human resources executive may earn a place at the board table. Shareholders and investor organizations expect boards to set clear objectives for the CEO and other top executives, and to have orderly succession plans arranged in the event of a management turnover.

Human resources executives who lead their companies in developing and adopting effective succession planning and executive evaluations will play key roles on their own companies’ boards—and may receive invitations to serve as outside directors on the boards of other corporations. But what steps can a human resources director take to ensure board status?

• Transform the human resources department. The human resources function must move from being viewed as merely a processing mechanism to being accepted as a key activator in sourcing and development.
  
  A new and stronger human resources function must assume the responsibility for identifying, preparing and evaluating tomorrow’s top executives, future CEOs and directors. By transforming the department, HR executives will also be transforming their own roles—and highlighting that those roles should be brought into the top levels of decision making.
  
  
• Demonstrate that human resources planning is required as an intrinsic part of corporate strategy.Board members consider overseeing strategic direction as one of their primary responsibilities. Addressing human resources issues must be an integral part of any company’s strategy.
  
  
• Become a key member of the top management team. Senior human resources executives must work closely with their CEO and have a deep understanding of the corporate culture, plans and policies.
  
  
• Think like a business executive. Human resources leaders must be more than specialized technical professionals with merely a passing understanding of the corporation’s products, strategies and objectives.
  
  
• Understand market conditions. The human resources professional can help define the executive skills and aptitudes that will be most compatible with the new markets and associated problems the corporation to encounter.
  
  
• Develop international skills. The human resources executive must be capable of assessing the costs and benefits of recruiting executives on a global basis, and must be skilled at international executive development.
  
  
• Get the right training and development to help change the role and prepare for the boardroom.Human resources professionals will need new skills to recruit and place tomorrow’s executives and ensure a place at the board table.
  

WHY HR MATTERS...

"HR is seldom a priority in the early days of a business, yet a proactive approach to people management is essential for building a better operation. It also plays an important role in compliance "

Most new businesses run a tight ship. Whatever the business model, product or service, the goal is usually to sell into the market as quickly and efficiently as possible. Key players include the staff that make or deliver the product, and the marketing and sales teams that bag the customers. In these early days, few managers and owners would say that HR (human resources) is their top priority.

However, as a business grows it takes on more staff. At this point, issues such as recruitment, retention, training, and retaining a recognizable culture in the face of expansion, will all come to the fore. The business may also be forced to make redundancies, take disciplinary action against individuals or integrate staff from an acquired company. Growth can also create performance management issues. In such a constantly changing environment, it is vital to take a proactive approach to people management. Put simply, a well-run company should take HR seriously as not only a legal safeguard, but also a means to develop talent and move the business to the next level.

Employment law

The starting point in terms of HR for most young and growing companies is the need to comply with a mountain of employment law, originating from domestic and EU legislators. Just about every aspect of employer/employee relations – from recruitment to dismissal, redundancy and retirement – is covered by a complex raft of legislation.

“In a competitive labour market, where you really don’t want to lose key employees to your rivals, HR will help you retain the best people.”

At the recruitment stage, this means ensuring that when the job is being marketed, the wording of any advertising is in line with age, gender, disability and race discrimination rules. The same principle applies during the interview process.

In the case of existing employees, businesses must ensure that procedures are followed to the letter in areas such as disciplinary action, dismissal, promotion and remuneration. Every business should have clear and compliant policies in place. Every member of staff should also have a contract of employment and, ideally, a copy of a company handbook containing information on staff policies. It’s also important to maintain procedures that generate evidence. For instance, if you’re forced to discipline a member of staff for poor timekeeping, the line manager must produce a record of all relevant incidents.

Business driver

But the role of HR in an organisation doesn’t begin and end with the technical and legal policies required to keep the business on the right side of employment and discrimination laws. HR policy can, and should, play an important role in creating a better business. In a competitive labour market, where you really don’t want to lose key employees to your rivals, HR will help you retain the best people.

HR is first and foremost a management role. If we return to the early days of a business, when it got by with just a handful of employees, much of the training and motivation will be through constant contact with the founder and/or senior managers. It’s very much an ad hoc situation.

However, bigger companies require a more formal approach to people management, covering areas including:

·         Remuneration policy and incentivisation

·         Training

·         Performance management and appraisals

·         Career paths

·         Motivation and employee engagement

·         Retention

·         Maintaining company culture

Very few of the above exist in isolation. Good companies understand the importance of having a well-motivated workforce, but there are various ways and means in which to engage individuals and encourage them to go that extra mile. Praise from managers, incentive bonuses, share schemes, access to quality training and even extracurricular activities such as charity fun runs, can all play a part. Businesses such as Google believe it is vital to maintain a recognisable company culture. This is achieved, in part, by recruiting the right people, but also by reinforcing company culture through internal communications.

Centre of business

All of this puts HR at the centre of the business. It’s no accident that many of the companies that have hosted Breakthrough Master classes have chosen to put people management at the heart of their presentations. And to engage and motivate those staff, Google allows personnel to spend 20% of their working time on their own projects.

So where do you start? Although technical skills, documentation and strategic guidance can always be provided by third-party consultancies, bear in mind that every growing organization can benefit from having their own HR manager or director. It is, after all, your people who will be most familiar with your company’s ambitions and culture, and therefore best placed to drive your business forward.