Staff Retention

Your staff are your most valuable resource, and right now, your competition is looking to poach them.

An outcome of the current labour market is that your staff have more options open to them; whether they are salespeople, installers, or they work in the office, they are seeing a demand for their skills. Flooring retailers are telling us that they are losing staff to competitors, and it is becoming increasingly hard to attract people to replace them.

Maybe the first thing that springs to mind when thinking about staff retention is having to pay more and the effect this has on our bottom line. There is a limit to what we can pay, but staff retention is not necessarily about paying staff more. However, it is worth recognising that while we must be mindful of cost, there is a  cost to not having good staff and significant costs and risks bringing on new staff.

If we haven’t thought about it, it’s time to think about how we proactively retain our staff. And we must be proactive because negotiating to retain a staff member who has had a better offer elsewhere seldom leads to good outcomes. Firstly, they wonder why they have had to get another offer to be paid more, and then secondly, it changes the relationship dynamic. In my experience of these situations, performance drops and almost invariably, they will move on within 12 months.

The key to retention is demonstrating to your staff that you value them and their contribution to your business. How do we do this?

The diagram on the right represents Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; it was developed to describe what we each need in life to be happy and fulfilled. It is often used to help managers and employers understand what their employees need to be happy in their jobs.

Remuneration

Money is generally not the main factor determining whether or not people are happy in their job. According to Maslow, there are more significant contributors to satisfaction with our job. Unfortunately, money is easier to quantify, so it is usually the key lure people will use to attract staff. It doesn’t determine how happy they might be in the new job.

How well are you paying your people? Starting with your key people, when was the last time they got an increase in their pay?

Even a modest pay increase speaks volumes for how you value your staff, particularly if the increase comes unexpectedly without being asked.

For salespeople and installers, the answer might not be a pay increase; instead, show them how, by achieving targets, you can pay them bonuses. There are tools in RFMS that can help.

Communication and Inclusivity

Our staff holds many of the keys to unlocking the potential of our business. We need to communicate with them regularly, share our vision, explain why we are about to make changes and ask for their help in achieving our goals. Genuinely doing this contributes toward the esteem need in the hierarchy of needs diagram. If our staff feel they are contributing to a larger cause, they won’t feel like just a cog in a machine.

We all have different levels of comfort when it comes to business information, so within your comfort level, share with your staff how the business is doing, your plans to improve it, and what it means for your employees. Actively seek their input and opinions. This is good not just for staff retention; we want our staff to be engaged and feel like what they do has a bearing on the outcome because it's good for the business.

Personal Growth

Personal growth (or self-actualisation) is at the top of the needs diagram. What opportunities exist within your business for your staff? Can we provide them with access to training to help them experience personal growth, maybe even in an area not directly related to their current role. Providing them with access to training resources and giving them time within the week to pursue that personal growth might have great value for some of your staff. This might apply to salespeople who aspire to a management role, installers who see sales as a career beyond installing, or office staff who want to acquire accounting skills.

Helping staff grow their skills is good for them and good for us.

Social Needs

We spend a large proportion of our time at work, and many of our friends are made at work. How do our staff feel about where they work? Firstly, it needs to be safe, safe from bullying or any form of harassment. This seems obvious, but in my experience, these elements can sneak into a workplace and quietly erode how people feel about coming to work.

We also want our workplace to be fun; staff want to feel they can let off steam or have an extended chat amongst themselves without incurring the boss's wrath. My policy is not to judge people by what they do every minute of the workday but by outcomes; so long as our business objectives are being met and nothing is being neglected, I have no interest in monitoring what everyone does in the course of the day.

How well our workplace meets the social needs of our staff influences how easily they can be poached.

Workplace Flexibility

Over the last couple of years, we have learned that some staff can work very effectively from home, which suits many people. Are we prepared to be flexible and provide options that meet the lifestyle needs of our staff? It might create some challenges or even inconvenience for us, but maybe we are prepared to pay that price to be a better employer.

Removing Barriers to Success

We want to feel successful in what we do. Are there currently barriers obstructing success for your staff. My go-to example is quantifying for salespeople; if your salespeople struggle with quantifying, they will struggle to make sales. Salespeople should be using quantifying software to make this task easier and less time-consuming. Further help is available from an external quantifying service such as QuantiSafe; whatever it takes to overcome the quantifying obstacle will make salespeople more successful.

Similar examples can be found across every role in our business; we want our staff to feel that they are successful because of the tools we provide for them.

Be gracious, keep the door open and stay in touch.

It’s the nature of being an employer that we will lose staff. When it happens, we don’t want to take it personally and want them to feel like the door is open for them to return in the future. Thank them for their contribution and take the time to have an exit interview; what did they enjoy about working in our business, and what might we do better.

Finally, keep in touch with ex-employees. An occasional phone call to find out how they are doing might just catch them at a time when they are ready to come back.

Retaining staff is going to be an issue for the foreseeable future. There is no silver bullet to protect us, but we can take steps to make it harder for our competitors to get their hands on our most valuable resource.

Chris Ogden is a consultant and Managing Director of RFMS Australasia (rfmsANZ.com), a supplier of IT solutions specific to the flooring industry. Chris has an extensive background in all aspects of the flooring industry, and he can be contacted at cogden@rfms.com.