Without satisfied staff, your business is going to tank. It really is that simple. Staff that feel unmotivated, only wishing to do the bare minimum, without a sense of duty or care towards your clients and a toxic office atmosphere will mean your company starts to rot from within. What could cause this? Is it possible you just hired a bunch of terrible, unremarkable people from the get go? No. Of course not. People, extremely often, want to do the best job they can to sustain themselves, continue their employment, and to potentially get promoted to earn the big bucks and enjoy the most job satisfaction.
You must allow them to start out well from the offset. You must treat them well from the offset. With a vibrant internal life, your firm will likely blossom much more than even you were expecting. Consider the following advice to make this a reality:
The Hiring Process
It all starts with the hiring process. How are you appealing to staff, but more importantly what are you telling them? Are you being honest with how life is at your firm, while still keeping the package attractive? Are you up front with the demands of their role? It can be quite something for an employee to be sold a rosy package and then head into work realizing that things aren’t quite what they seem. Of course, this sounds contrary to requirements. You need to make your workplace attractive in order to attract a higher quality of worker. However, too many firms fall victim to selling them the dream pitch while also holding their cards close to the chest, and trying to make the employee work for it all. Be up front, and give detailed descriptions about life at your firm. Explain some of the challenges you might have had, but how victorious you were when trying to implement changes there.
This works in two ways. It not only helps the potential employee feel respected, but they will gain an appreciation for you in describing the role, and will know that at their workplace there, they will never have to deal with corporate over-jargon and an office self-deception that can be found in some struggling firms. Does this mean you should detail every problem you’ve had in the last two years and warn away highly-skilled applicants? Absolutely not. But being more direct, frontal and respectful of building a relationship with a highly skilled candidate can absolutely net you loyalty points.
Understand Who You’re Hiring
It’s important to understand who you’re hiring. It’s easy to sell the dream job once again, and attract completely the wrong individual. Understanding who you’re hiring is important, as well as considering the engagement for each advertisement you’ve put up. You might also decide to hire people based on merit yes, but also perhaps their experience and valuable skills. Recruitment metrics can tell you how you’ve been approached, and what you might do to find a better quality of people. When you do this, you not only find better people for your firm, but your firm becomes the right place to work for a range of more targeted candidates. To us, helping new candidates finding a workplace they belong in is surely treating them well from the offset, before they’ve even potentially begun the job.
Training
Staff want four things from a job. They want to earn an adequate salary and benefits for their skills and input, they want to have a decent working environment they can tolerate or even enjoy each day, they want to feel satisfied engaging with their workload everyday, and they also want to be able to stay hopeful for the future. Of course, any one of these pillars being knocked out is absolutely going to lead to the path to resignation. However, perhaps the least respected method of consideration is the final one. Staff need to to feel hopeful for the future.
For that reason, invest in training. Invest in their skills. Hire internally. Show them that in your firm, they have the opportunity to push forward and make something of themselves. Try to help them become even more useful and invaluable to your firm. Of course, this can be done through available courses, new projects and classes, but it can also be done through teaching them new internal responsibilities, or helping them gain more autonomy over projects. While all the previous three pillars might help your employee want the job, and work competently at the job each day, training will make the stay at the job, and help you lessen your turnover. It also fosters loyalty, and a goodwill for your brand which is truly important to build.
