Edmonton Business Consultant | Keeping Employees Forever

Many entrepreneurs believe that because the cost of losing employees is so high, because recruiting and training new staff takes an extreme toll on the business, that they need to avoid losing people at all costs. However, business owners need to understand that keeping the wrong employee can be more expensive than the cost of just losing one. By having periodic reviews, business owners can be letting their employees know in the moment when they see good behaviours that they want to reward and congratulate, and addressing behaviours that they want to correct. This way, business owners can ensure that they are giving all of their employees as fair a chance as possible to understand how to work in their business.

But even when entrepreneurs are doing everything they can to increase the retention rate of employees they want to keep, and correcting problematic behaviour, Edmonton business consultant says that despite all best intentions, employees are going to leave. Reasons that employees may choose to leave, is if they get sick, there significant other gets transferred to another city, or they retire. Reasons that may not have anything to do with the business itself, and when those staff members choose to leave, it is going to be because the timing is best for them, and not best for their employer.

Because of this inevitable transition, business owners need to understand that by ensuring their business can continue operating no matter which employee leaves, they should always have a minimum of two staff members in their business familiar with any role that needs to be completed. Therefore, no matter who leaves in their business, the business can continue to operate.

Another way to ease the effect of this transition in businesses says Edmonton business consultant, is entrepreneurs should always be looking for great people. Big mistake that entrepreneurs often make in business, is that they stop looking as soon as they have all the staff that they need. By doing this, entrepreneurs are not prepared for whenever it may be that a staff member decides to leave. By ensuring that there always looking and conducting interviews, business owners can minimize the time between one staff member leaving, and when they can hire that new one.

As much as entrepreneurs often want to keep their employees for life, Edmonton business consultant says it is not a realistic goal to think that a business owner is going to be able to keep an employee for life. The reason for this, is employees may choose to leave business for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the business, and rather than taking it personally when a staff member does leave, business owners should instead understand that because losing employees and hiring new ones is now going to be a normal part of operating their business, they should be proactive to minimize the effect it has in their company.

One way that business owners can be proactive in their business to ensure that there always attracting the right people to their business, is to ensure that there corporate values are clearly stated to both employees and potential employees. Not only is that important, but Edmonton business consultant says that their values should also be polarizing. Business owners should not write the values in order to appeal to the most people possible, they should write what is most important to the business that way, if a potential employee reads the corporate values and decide not to apply for the job, a business owner should consider that as a great way to filter out the employees who are not going to be a good fit in their organization.

Further to communicating values, Edmonton business consultant says business owners should also keep in mind that salary is not the most important factor in keeping employees. Other important factors that employees consider when working for an organization is location, the length of commute, the worklife balance as well as the mission and vision of the company. If salary was the most important factor, everybody would be working in work camps up north. However there not, so business owners need to be aware of all of the important factors of why people want to work for various companies.

Once entrepreneurs have communicated their values, and have attracted the right people to their business, a great way to increase the retention rate of the employees they want to keep, are to have periodic reviews on a regular basis, in order to congratulate the successes, and reward good behaviour. If a business owner waits until an annual review to tell an employee all the ways that they have done good, it may lose its impact. The sooner a business owner can recognize great behaviour, the greater chance they have at ensuring that that behaviour gets repeated.

By understanding that employee attrition is going to be at regular part of their business, business owners should be proactive in their business to ensure that they are working to keep the staff that they have, but always be identifying great candidates that would be a good fit in their business in case the need arises that they need employees.