How to Add Loyal Employees to Your Workforce
Businesses come in all shapes and sizes. Each can have a different industry, structure, layout, and management system. But in most cases, the one thing they all have in common is the need for a workforce. Granted, it is hard to call the two high school kids that comprise the employees of a local hardware store a workforce, but in fact they are. As is the massive amount of employees some Fortune 500 companies employ.
Your workforce is the transportation of your company, and you are the driver. Drive them too hard and care for them too little and you will be left with worn out parts. As we have discussed in previous articles, the market is evolving as is the employee. Being the best educated employee you have no longer automatically makes them the cream of the crop. Good employees work for good companies. It’s as simple as that.
Over the last few articles, we have outlined what it means to be a “good” company for your employees. The obvious answer is to be profitable and to pay well. But beyond that, what do you offer your employees? A worthwhile paycheck is a good start, and retirement and health care plans are pretty much required nowadays. So how do you differentiate yourself while still being a “good” employer? Easy answer: offer benefits that make the most sense, not necessarily those with the largest price tag.
Many times those benefits can be more valuable to employees than earning more money. This is especially true if you employ people with families. A well-rounded healthcare plan can sway a great employee’s decision about whether to work for your company. Or worse, a not-so-well-rounded plan may cause them to leave.
We also discussed retirement plans and how they are almost necessary for employees to participate in if they are to achieve a stress-free retirement one day. The main point here is the need to offer various plans with options that allow your employees to grow their savings based on where they are in life at that point.
Let’s look back at our hardware store example. If you have two part-time high school students working for $7.25/hour, you are unlikely to offer them a retirement plan. Even if you did, how would they afford to contribute any amount of their very small income to the plan? This brings us to our first point about setting up retirement plans for your company.
Make sure your employees can take advantage of them. For low-wage employees, you should offer plans that allow them to contribute what they can, but that still rewards them with a contribution from the company. This is commonly known as a Safe Harbor plan. On the other end of the spectrum, some businesses have high wage earners who have the ability to contribute a large amount of their paycheck to plans. These employees can usually expect the company to match up to a high percentage of their contribution, essentially maxing out the allowable contributions each year. The real test of strength for your plan is whether it is useful for both ends of the spectrum.
A thorough evaluation of your workforce should be completed prior to implementing plans. If you do not have one-on-one contact with your employees, then this is the step where you have to rely on your management team to properly evaluate your employees.
Think about what is best for your employees within reason. Evaluate each part of your business from the thinkers to the doers, and make sure that their needs are properly administered through your benefits offering. Also, keep in mind that services such as PTO/vacation time can, in many cases, not even be treated like an expense. As long as employees are put into places where they can complete the work that is needed from them, then you will not experience a huge loss for the few days they are lounging on the beach.
These 3 articles have said a lot of the same thing, in many different ways, in an attempt to reiterate a singular point. Better pay and benefits will get your company better, more loyal employees.
As we already said, better employees lead to a better business. But beyond the bottom line for your business, you as a CEO or owner have the responsibility of offering the right benefits for your hard working employees. As simple or complex as you want your offering to be, be sure it is utilized.
You will never regret giving employees more than they expect, but your company could really be hurt by you not giving them what they deserve.
Category: Business Growth & Strategy
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