Salary And Benefits Must Be Competitive

A recent Glassdoor survey of people in recruitment, HR, and hiring

managers found that for 45% of employees who quit, the top reason is
salary. This reason was followed by career advancement opportunities,
better benefits, and location.

Is it always about the money?

According to a collection of recent surveys on employee retention,

only 24% of “Generation X” employees say that financial stability motivates
them to stay in a job. Yet 56% of employees say that health care and
insurance concerns keeps them in their job. Benefits that are actually
beneficial matter. Money matters. What you offer your employees in this
area must be comparable to other businesses in your industry in your
region.

After seeing those statistics, you’d be forgiven if you thought that the
easiest fix for employee retention concerns would seem to be to offer more
money and more benefits. No doubt these are two top issues that
employers must consider, and for some employees, that would be
necessary.

However, seeing this as the only option is a knee-jerk reaction that can cost
your business more than it can afford. Salary and benefits are important
and should be considered—especially if you are paying below industry
standards—but there are other methods to retain employees than costly
raises and benefits.

2. Hire The Right Person At The Start

Glassdoor found that 35% of those doing the hiring of new employees are
doing so with the expectation that more employees will be quitting in the
coming year. It’s a little disheartening to know that those doing the hiring
are already envisioning over one-third of their hires walking out the door.
If you hire a quitter, don’t be surprised if they quit. If you hire someone
who’s a bad fit for your business, don’t be surprised if they (or employees
they’ve annoyed) quit.
37% of hiring managers say that new hires would stick around longer if
they were better informed during the hiring process. A poor onboarding
experience for a new hire builds a foundation of negativity in the new job.

Make sure you’re being honest about what you expect of the new hire.
Don’t hide or sugar-coat aspects of the job just to get a person to bite.
Transparency is key in finding the right employees.

3. Reduce Employee Pain

You can’t expect employees to function like robots. When an employee’s
work and life balance is out of whack, there’s pain. If your employee feels
like she spends most of her life working instead of living, the job becomes
the bad guy.

Consider the aviation industry, and the struggle airlines are having with
a pilot shortage. There simply aren’t enough pilots to fill the airplanes, and
a looming retirement wave of seasoned pilots promises to make the
problem worse.

Airlines have been working at several solutions, with one being fairly
obvious: offer better salaries than can be found elsewhere in the industry,
and tempt pilots away from other airlines or from corporate aviation. This, in
turn leads the Air Force to increase salaries for pilots, a kind of trickle down
effect that will ultimately have the worst impact on those companies unable
to compete with such salaries.

What should a small business or company do if they are in a situation or an

industry in which competition for great employees is high, but the business
can’t afford to pay a dollar-for-dollar competitive salary?

Find the pain point.

Through employee surveys, direct feedback, or paying attention to industry
trends, find out what is a point of frustration for employees in your industry.
For example, commercial pilots often have onerous schedules, living in one
city and having to fly to another city where they are “based.” They spend
time surrounded by traveling strangers (some who are not the most cheery)
and in hotels instead of with family. That’s a point of pain for some.

Alleviate the pain point.

Think of pain as the main thing to be alleviated.

Money alleviates pain, in a way, making the hassle worthwhile because the
resulting paycheck will make other areas of life less painful. But there are
other ways to attack the pain problem that some employees will consider
being just as valuable as being paid more.

Using our aviation example, corporate aviation can sometimes offer more
family-friendly schedules even if they can’t match commercial salaries.
They are revamping how they set up flight schedules so that pilots can be
home each night, or have shorter on-the-road schedules.

Conversely, airlines are attractive to corporate pilots who are tired of the full
service (clean, schedule, greet, stow luggage, plan) they have to handle on
each flight; for most airlines, the pilot simply has to show up to fly. Perhaps
a corporate flight department might consider hiring staff that would do much
of the unskilled labor (cleaning, etc.) and fully combat all perceived pain
points to retain and attract pilots.

Don’t let the pain build elsewhere.

Good workers are easily taken for granted. Be on guard for employees who
may not be complaining, but are quietly feeling exhausted or frustrated
about the amount of work expected from them.

Some employees, because of their personality or nature, won’t even realize

they are overworking themselves. Perhaps you don’t expect it of them, but
they have a work ethic that demands a constant nose to the grindstone
approach. These are employees who sometimes think in terms of an
accounting ledger, and will rarely take time off because they don’t want to
miss the income. For these people, paid vacation helps. Gifting a random
paid day off helps.
 Perhaps organizational changes have created pain unintentionally.
Perhaps you’ve created a pain point by solving another problem but
creating a new one. Whatever the case, communicate with your staff and
keep an eye out for areas that have inspired grumbling. Those are pain
points.

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4. Have Leaders, Not Bosses

Few people want to be leaders, but everyone wants to be the boss.
Remember, though, that people follow leaders, while they abandon bosses.
A boss is a dime a dozen while leaders are rare.

Do you want to keep your employees?

It’s worth knowing the five characteristics of effective leaders, because it’s

going to play directly into employee engagement, our next employee
retention strategy.

 Clear direction towards the future. Good leaders let employees know
where the company is headed. Bosses don’t share information and leave
employees wondering if there’s good or bad coming down the pipe and if
they should be concerned.
 Able to handle challenges. Leaders handle the many challenges that
come their way instead of intentionally or unintentionally offloading the
stress onto the employees.
 Genuine desire to offer high quality. For both customers and
employees, good leaders offer the best products, services, and experience
possible. Bosses are almost behind the curve, scrambling to meet the
minimums.
 A belief in the importance of people. Good leaders consider
employees their most important asset. Bosses are focused on numbers.
 Inspires confidence. Good leaders make employees feel confident
about their ability to lead them to a good place. Bosses tend to inspire
passive-aggressive frustration as employees question the decisions that
have been made that have affected them negatively.
How do you be a good leader instead of just a boss?
Be available for your employees.

Bosses often give lip service to an “open door policy”, but it’s not enough to
simply invite criticism and feedback. It’s not unusual for people to feel they
can’t really express themselves for fear of embarrassment or reprisal, even
with open door policies in place.

This is about actively creating an open rapport with employees. You don’t
have to become best friends but taking the time to be friendly and engaged
with your employees will pay off in spades.

Be steady and structured.

Try a work scheduling app to streamline this process and save time. Have
a good handbook and stick to it, treating all employees and situations
equally and fairly.

Anything less is chaotic. Employees don’t stick around for chaos and
drama.

5. Keep An Eye On Your Managers

People leave managers, not companies.
Ever ask people about the jobs they hate and the reasons they left?

Chances are pretty good that one of the first things you’ll hear is griping
about a manager or boss, not the products, the customers, or other co-
workers. Keep an eye on your managers.

People follow as they’re led, and a bad manager creates a negative mess
all around.

So, while you’re taking the time to train your manager to deal with the
technical aspects of their positions, it’s in your best interest to include some
“soft skills” as well. This means teaching your managers how to encourage
and motivate different types of people, personality traits, conflict
management, stress management, crisis management, and so on.

6. Make Employee Engagement Possible

According to a Gallup poll, 56% of somewhat disengaged and 73% of
actively disengaged employees are actively looking for a different job.

That ought to get any employer’s attention.

Your first response, however, shouldn’t be a matter of blaming employees

for their distraction as a reason for their disengagement. Distraction is
associated with motivation problems. As an employer, you need to
understand what motivates people to want to become fully engaged with
the work they do and what makes them merely punch in at the time clock
until something better comes along.

What motivates people to engage, care, and want to stick around and stay
a part of the team?

Offer valuable learning opportunities.

Employees who are highly engaged in learning are also more engaged at
work.
 Just remember that the kind of learning opportunities I’m talking about isn’t
the same as on-the-job training. You should be helping your employees to
grow and expand, not simply get better at what they already do. If your
training centers completely rely on increasing performance in a current role,
you’re missing the boat. Consider:

 Cross-training programs so employees have a broad skill set, not just

a narrow set limited to their specific job.
 Mentorship programs that encourage mentee to become mentor.
 Create a leadership ladder so employees know what they need to do
to move up.
Good employees (the ones who are dedicated to your company—the ones
you really want to keep) want the opportunity to advance, not just maintain
momentum.

Make advancement possible.

Whether it’s job advancement, promotion, or some form of professional
development, people who feel like there is always a goal they can work for
instead of a dead end are generally more motivated.

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

How hard will you work if you know you’re only going to be treading water,
instead of advancing, for the foreseeable future of your job? Why wouldn’t
you start looking for a new job if you’re someone who is motivated by
achievement?

Give employees opportunities for concrete success.

According to Entrepreneur, people have a “deep desire to feel they’re
succeeding and that their talents and capabilities are being used in a way
that makes a difference to the business.”

It’s not enough for you to give vague (if well-intentioned) feedback. Your
employees actually want to see the results of their work. They want to have
that concrete object that they can rest their pride on. They need to see the
results with their own two eyes.
 7. Be A Brand They Can Be Proud Of
This is an age of activism, with upcoming generations who want every
aspect of their lives to be part of a solution instead of a problem. Be a
business known for the positives, known for your involvement and support
of:

 Charities and helpful organizations.

 The local community.
 Issues such as environment, education, or equality.
 Team-building and a family-like work environment.
Find a way that your business can fit such a reputation. You might have to
turn your business reputation on its head. For example, maybe you are an
auto shop that donates to environmental activities, or is known for your
eco-friendly policies regarding your waste. Perhaps you run a restaurant
that regularly provides food for a local soup kitchen.

Employees who are passionate and care about the impact their lives have
on the world will consider working for a positive branded business a serious
benefit.

While every business has to evaluate where their wages and benefits sit in
comparison to regional industry standards, those direct dollar concerns
aren’t the only way to retain your employees.

Just remember that your employees aren’t automatons, chugging along

only for a paycheck. They care about where they work, how they work, and
who they work with. When competing in a tight job market, it’s important to
keep that in mind instead of getting in an unwinnable wage bidding war that
could wipe out your bottom line.