Nurture
your
Employees
Reap maximum
benefits with
minimum expense
by Susan W. Stang, Ph.D.
Employers don’t necessarily need to spend
more dollars to retain their best
employees. Investing in employees — not
wages and benefits — provides a big employees who will thrive in your 5. Measure your culture — manage
stores, execute your mission, and your reputation. Ensure that your
return in retention, productivity and commit to and grow with your managers support and accept your
commitment. company. vision, understand your mission, and
care about your employees. If you
2. Build relationships. Formally
want to retain your employees,
structure your management jobs to
Q What is the number one employment
challenge for companies today?
Retaining top quality and key
include information sharing, team
building, and coaching. Ensure that
create a culture in which employees
are valued and appreciated. The
more energy and interest you invest
employees is today's greatest managers work alongside their
in your employees, the greater the
employment challenge. Retention is employees on a daily basis. Managers
return in productivity, commitment,
critical even for companies with low who spend all their time in the back
and support. Employees will stay
overall employee turnover — the room cannot effectively manage
with your company because no one
current labor market makes it performance or build relationships.
could possibly offer better.
extremely difficult to replace any
employee, let alone one who is valued, 3. Build a two-way communication
network. Ask for employee input
skilled, and conscientious.
about day-to-day operations,
Have a question for Susan? Send it
procedures and policies. For to her at info @ pbs-ltd.com.
Q To be competitive, I cannot afford to
increase pay rates or broaden my
benefit plan. What steps can I take to
example, administer and, most
importantly, act upon employee
Susan W. Stang, Ph.D., an industrial psychologist,
specializes in employee
selection, retention,
satisfaction surveys, 360-degree
improve employee retention? feedback instruments, and/or development, and evaluation.
Culture, growth, opportunities, and culture audits. Give managers She has more than 20 years of
effective management are far more experience and is currently
critical to employee retention than are feedback on actionable items that President and CEO of
pay or benefits. World-class will allow them to improve the work Performance-Based Selection,
organizations involve their employees environment and employee Ltd. (PBS).
in decision-making, share information, retention.
PBS develops practical and cost-effective
encourage personal growth, and 4. Create opportunities. Capitalize on solutions to help its clients identify, retain,
recognize accomplishments and
contributions. You can significantly the talent you already have access to reward, and manage top-quality employees.
improve your employee retention by — your current employees. Define
simply creating a better place to work. performance expectations, but give
employees the right and
responsibility to determine how to
Q How do I go about creating a better
place to work? get there. Allow them flexibility and
autonomy and give them the tools
1. Hire people who "fit.Screen for skills, and resources to do the job right.
abilities, attitudes and values. Select
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