Hiring and Retaining Happy Employees

Your company’s success hinges on its employees. If you have excessive employee turnover, and you are always spending time training new employees, then you are suffering immensely. You are spending out more money than necessary, you see productivity decrease, you have unhappy customers because they aren’t building quality relationships with your employees, and you aren’t getting the highest caliber employees because you aren’t offering the right benefits to recruit and retain them.

Recruiting quality employees has become highly competitive in recent years. Here are a few things that you can do to help you hire and retain happy employees:

• Have an environment where your employees are connected to your organization, allowing them to have a positive work-related experience that is part of a fulfilling life. You want them to have a work-life balance.
• Stay honest and transparent with your employees. Feedback and understanding the concerns your team has is valuable, but it is what you do after that point that is critical to maintaining good team members. Always share what you have learned and provide employees with a course of action for handling any problems. While many places communicate successes, they fail to discuss areas that need improvement and how to address them.
• Offer generous vacation time. Offer incremental vacation days to your highest performers. As the superstars of your team, you can rest assured that they will continue to get the job done, so let them have some extra time off work to be with family and friends.
• Make sure there is communication in common areas. Businesses need to create spaces where employees can easily share ideas and communicate with one another. Casual conversations in the breakroom can turn into collaboration. Have areas that are inviting, so add nice furniture, such as comfortable tables and chairs, and even throw in some beverages and snacks.
• Promote a work environment that is positive because as we all know, when you have happy employees you will have a content company. Publicly acknowledge accomplishments in the office, provide staff lunches, change titles, and reserve prime parking spots for awards. You should also help employees grow and develop, whether that involves taking on new challenges, adding responsibilities, attending courses or seminars to learn new skills, or going on business trips to represent the company.
• While pay raises are helpful and should be given regularly based on performance, don’t forget to say, “thank you.” Usually, when an employee becomes unhappy at work it is because they don’t like their supervisor, they are never encouraged, or the employees don’t think they have other opportunities there to learn or grow. When you have a positive workplace environment, it promotes communication, teamwork, and engagement. Do occasional shout-outs to employees in different parts of the organization for their extra effort or for great work they have done.
• Don’t forget to reward employees and do it frequently. Even a considerable award will wear out or not be fresh in the memory in a few months, so reward – even if it is smaller – more often.
• Offer more than the essential benefits. Don’t forget to throw in some perks. Consider adding extra life insurance or disability coverage. Ancillary benefits, such as optical, wellness, and dental coverage are also well-received. A bonus gym membership can help your team stay happy and healthy.

If you would like to help make sure you are on track to hiring and retaining happy employees, consult with MKS&H CPAs and Business Consultants. We have two convenient locations to serve you. You can call the Hunt Valley location at (410) 296-6200 or the Frederick location at (301) 662-7913.