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Running a business usually means hiring employees to manage the day-to-day aspects of your company. Your staff are undoubtedly the most significant assets of your business, and without them, you probably wouldn’t have a company to operate!
Some businesses are notorious for mistreating their staff, and it comes as no surprise that such behavior results in a high turnover of staff. It goes without saying that you should treat your employees with the respect they deserve.
When you need to hire new talent to work in your business and ensure it grows and stays successful, there’s one thing you must do. You need to ask yourself why people would want to work for your company!
Do you want everyone to know that your business is a place everyone would love to work for? If so, here’s how you can curate a culture of happiness and success in your business by offering these motivational reasons to work for you:
Provide flexible working schedules
If there’s one thing the current COVID-19 pandemic has taught the world, it’s that flexible and remote working is possible in many occupations. For example, call center staff can work from home using nothing more than laptops, Internet connections, and VoIP headsets.
An essential motivational tool to attract the right talent to your business is flexibility – specifically, flexible working schedules. Aside from the COVID-19 situation, some of the reasons employees might prefer flexible working schedules include:
- Having time to take their children to school or pick them up from there;
- Fitting in work around existing childcare arrangements;
- Beating rush-hour traffic to and from work;
- Saving commuting costs.
Did you know that flexible working schedules for employees offer businesses other benefits aside from employee retention? For instance, companies can save substantial sums of money due to lower office space, salary, and insurance, among other overheads and costs.
Have an exemplary safety record
When people go to work each day, they expect to finish their shifts and head back home without any issues. The truth is, workplace injuries occur in their thousands each year, and sadly some employees never get to go home again in extreme incidents.
That’s why it makes sense for your business to make safety a priority and have an exemplary safety record. One that they can boast about to prospective candidates in job interviews.
How can your company have an exemplary safety record, you might ask yourself? Here are some examples of how to achieve that goal:
Invest in the right fire protection equipment
Some workplaces will undoubtedly have a higher risk of fire due to the nature of the work involved. In those situations, heavy investment in the right fire protection equipment makes perfect sense.
What’s more, you can keep your costs down with fire extinguisher rental and enforcing a strict safety policy with all employees.
Be proactive with your safety training
The last thing you want is for your team to hurt themselves because they don’t know how to lift heavy boxes properly or handle dangerous chemicals correctly. With that in mind, you should be proactive with your safety training.
Ensure all employees get regular safety training and fully understand the safety risks of doing their jobs incorrectly.
Offer abundant training and personal development
Let’s face it: when people get a job, they don’t expect to be in the same role for several years or decades. Most individuals will want to progress up the career ladder and bolster their skills and qualifications in the process.
One way of keeping employee retention rates high at your business is by offering everyone access to training and tools to boost their personal development. The skills and qualifications they gain will benefit your business as well as themselves.
For instance, they could gain management skills and qualifications, resulting in them moving to a more senior role within your company.
Hire people based on merit
The sad truth about many of today’s workplaces is how there’s a hidden bias. Did you know that some employers unknowingly stop some people from getting a job, despite having the right qualifications and experience?
If a ‘good’ employee leaves the company, the firm in question will likely use that individual as a benchmark or prototype for their ideal candidate to replace them. The problem is, unintended and hidden biases can creep in when taking such an approach to hiring people.
Here are some ways to effectively hire people based on merit rather than gender, race, or age:
Don’t recycle old job descriptions
The wording used might only encourage a small selection of people to apply for jobs at your company. For instance, asking for a ‘coding ninja’ will deter female developers from applying for programming roles at your firm.
It’s impossible to use gender-neutral wording in job descriptions. Instead, it makes sense to balance out words or phrases aimed at specific genders.
Don’t use stereotypes to judge a candidate’s suitability
When you interview prospective employees, the worst thing you can do is make judgments about candidates or use stereotypical views to influence your decisions. You should hire people based on what they can offer your business, not how attractive they look.
Similarly, you shouldn’t use other stereotypical views to make any final decisions. It makes no difference if a person’s skin color is black, white, or purple. Nor should you care if they ‘sound’ like they’re from an underprivileged part of the country.
Don’t assume disabled people can’t do the job
If a candidate uses a wheelchair, there aren’t any reasons why that person should get deemed unsuitable for an office job. The same also applies to individuals with ‘hidden’ disabilities.
Final thoughts
There’s no denying you’ve got a vast talent pool at your disposal whenever you need to hire someone new for your business. You should also keep in mind that candidates want their future employers to treat them well and with the respect they expect and deserve.
The above points illustrate some of the ways you can make your business attractive to all future candidates and decrease staff turnover.
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