How Much Should You Pay Your Staff?

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article, How Much Should You Pay Your Staff?

If you’re a start-up business looking to hire employees, you’ll need to consider how much money is enough to keep your staff happy without your business suffering. To stop you skimping out or overspending, here are some ways to budget for your staff and ensure they get the most suitable rate.

Know how much you can spare

Consider how much you need to comfortably live on and if you will need to make any cuts. You will need to be making enough money from your clients to cover the cost of your staff’s wages, plus compulsory insurance schemes such as employer liability and vehicle insurance if they are planning to drive. You’ll also have to account for any training and any wastage that may occur as a result of that (if it’s a restaurant you may need to prepare practice dishes resulting in wasted food, if it’s a professional electrician business you may have to pay for health and safety courses).

If after all this you still can’t afford to pay your staff minimum wage, you should reassess your business plan before making the decision to hire employees. Taking on a financial advisor or accountant temporarily may be necessary in order to budget this.

Commission or salary?

Next you’ll have to decide what kind of contract to give your staff. For businesses in which payment is not always guaranteed from week to week, commission pay may be more appropriate. In some sales jobs this can be a great incentive to make those big sales. However many employees may be put off by the uncertainty of not always being paid. Salary-based pay works best when you have a regular enough income to always assure payment to your staff. Failing to be able to provide for your staff could get you into a lot of trouble, so make sure you have that regular income to fall back on.

Account for age and experience

For young employees, the minimum wage bracket varies. This ranges from £3.40 for apprentices to £7.20 for those 25 and older. For businesses wanting to take on staff cheaply, apprenticeships are popular choice. However, apprentices are limited to what work they can legally do, and may still have to do their apprenticeship alongside a college course, so don’t look at them as a full-time solution.

It’s important to also account for experience. If you’re hiring an assistant manager, they should be getting more than your average worker. When advertising for experienced workers, make sure you’re charging more than the starting rate to ensure they don’t choose another business over yours.

Compare other businesses

A great way to gage the going rate is to find out what other businesses are charging. Job sites are a good indicator of this, as you can see what other employers are charging. For an even better pointer, you may wish to pay for a salary benchmarking and comparison survey. This involves paying a professional to review similar businesses to your own and find out exactly what they are paying their staff. From here you can set your own rate and know that you aren’t being too tight-fisted or over generous.

Incentives and bonuses

On top of regular pay you may want to provide extra incentives to keep staff happy. The most popular form of incentive is to offer bonuses to staff that perform well. This could include setting a yearly target that the whole team must aspire to or individual targets. Of course, make sure that these targets are realistic so that staff want to achieve them and don’t alter the goalposts halfway through the year – find a target and stick with it to keep people motivated (keep it on a big board or continuously talk about it weekly meetings).

Another incentive is to offer your staff stakes in the company. John Lewis is the most famous company to have pulled this off, but you don’t have to be retail giant like them – small business can offer shares too.

You can also offer other incentives such as free dental care, childcare vouchers, a company car or free lunches. Christmas parties and social events can also be provided to improve morale. These are some of the best incentives as they don’t just offer workers money but offer experiences. Such benefits are often known as employment packages. It is important to realise that these are affected by tax and NIC implications (another thing you may want to ask a financial advisor or accountant about).

Key Strategies For Increasing Productivity

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |Productivity|Key Strategies For Increasing ProductivityProductivity is an area that has a direct impact on the success of a business, but it is also an area that can fluctuate drastically. When you are able to keep productivity high and find ways to boost productivity when inevitable dips occur, it can help you to take your company forward and keep your employees working at a high level at all times. This is an enormous challenge for business owners, but there are a few effective strategies that should help to increase your productivity and, in turn, help your business to find greater success and improve the performance of your team.

Increase Collaboration

One of the most effective strategies to try is to increase collaboration. People tend to step up their game when they are working in a pair or as part of the group as not to let down the other group member(s). Collaboration can also help your team to come up with different solutions, create a strong team-based mentality and lift morale.

Remote Working

Encouraging remote working can also have a positive impact on productivity. It may seem like allowing your staff to work from home would have an adverse effect, but you will find that productivity increases because morale is high and stress is lower, plus it can also be easy to work remotely thanks to cloud computing.

AV Design

Utilizing the best audiovisual and video conferencing systems can also help you to maximize productivity by creating technologically advanced workspaces that can allow you and your team to work to a high standard and collaborate with ease. Specialists like Interactive Solutions can work with you to understand your needs and then deliver high-tech, state-of-the-art spaces which will certainly have a positive impact on productivity.

Recruitment & Training

It is also worth addressing your recruitment policy to make sure that you are hiring the right people for the job. In addition to people who have the right skills and knowledge for each role, you should also make sure that you are hiring passionate workers who will come into work each day ready to perform. Additionally, you need to train your staff and give them added responsibilities to keep them engaged and on their toes at all times.

Improve Work Environment

You cannot expect your team to be productive if they are not working in a healthy environment. This is why you should take a careful look at the office environment to see if there are any improvements that could be made, such as increasing natural light, increasing airflow, allowing staff more room, or by investing in ergonomic furniture.

Hopefully, these strategies will give you a few ideas for how you can increase productivity in the workplace. This needs to be an area that all business owners keep a close eye on as there can be times where productivity will inevitably drop and so you must understand why this is. You can then take action to make improvements and maintain high levels of productivity for continued success.

Expand Your Recruitment Pool

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |Recruitment|Expand Your Recruitment PoolWant to hire the perfect employee? The more candidates you have to choose from, the better your chances are of finding that ideal candidate. There are lots of ways to expand your pool of candidates. Here are just several ways to encourage more applicants so that you’re more likely to hire the right person for the job.

Advertise employee perks, not just demands

A bad job ad could put off the best jobseekers from applying. Often it’s these applicants that can afford to be picky – they have all the qualifications and experience you need and are looking for a company that sells itself to them. In order to appeal to these candidates, you need to make sure that you highlight the perks of working for your company. This could include benefits such as flexible working hours, bonuses or company-paid healthcare. Avoid solely listing demands from candidates as you could find that this only attracts the most desperate applicants.

Don’t limit yourself to local talent

Don’t always limit yourself to local talent. If someone needs to be able to work within your office, then clearly they need to be within good commuting distance. However, there may be some workers willing to relocate – perhaps even from abroad – that could be perfect for the role. You’ll need to swot up on business immigration law, but it could be worth it for expanding your options. There are also lots of jobs that can be worked remotely. For instance, a web programmer may be able to work from any location in the world and may not necessarily need to be someone based locally.

Think beyond job ad boards

Job ad boards like Indeed are great places to attract applicants – but they’re not the only place. There are many other places in which you can advertise and increase the exposure that your ads get, helping you to receive more applications. This could include advertising in newspapers, advertising on social media, attending job fairs at schools and universities or even placing posters and flyers in strategic places. Trying different forms of job advertising will involve more investment, but it could be worth it if you’re certain hire an employee that serves you well.

Use a recruitment agency

You can hire a recruitment agency to help look for talent. If you use a reliable recruitment agent, you should be able to increase the amount of applications you receive. Recruiters may even be able to handle tasks such as interviews for you to save you time.

Allow enough time

It’s also important that you’re not rushing the recruitment process. The longer you advertise for, the more applications you’ll receive. While you don’t have to advertise for months on end, you should make sure that you’re accepting applications for at least a week. Similarly, you should leave enough time to interview multiple candidates rather than just one or two favourites.

6 Fast and Easy Ways to Improve Work Performance

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |Improve Work Performance|6 Fast and Easy Ways to Improve Work PerformanceHow productive is your business?

A common way to measure organizational productivity is to look at your bottom line. If revenues are growing year over year, you can conclude that your company is productive.

However, that’s a simplistic way of measuring productivity. You need to evaluate the rate of output per unit. In this context, a unit is an employee.

Are your employees putting out more quality work within a defined timeframe? Is it taking them longer to complete a task that should be taking a few minutes?

If yes, you need to know how to improve work performance. Continue reading for more insight.

1. Find Out Why Performance Is Low

To fix something that’s broken, you must start by finding out the broken part, right?

Similarly, to improve the performance of your employees, you need to begin by establishing why they aren’t performing to your company’s expectations. Once you have this information, it’s easy to implement effective performance improvement measures.

So, how do you gather this information?

If yours is a medium-sized or large organization with several employees, it can be difficult to pinpoint the problem, right?

In this case, what you need to do is to run a survey. Issue questionnaires that enable employees to provide anonymous feedback on the challenges they’re facing. You can also ask them to provide suggestions on what the organization can do to improve their productivity.

2. Assess the Workload Per Employee

Sometimes productivity suffers not becomes an employee is incompetent, but because they simply have too much work to do within a short time.

This is why you need to evaluate the workload of each of your employees and determine whether it’s within their capabilities. If it’s too much for them to handle, an obvious solution is to reduce it.

Another option is to hire more employees and split the workload among them. Of course, a larger team is be suited to complete the work faster and improve the overall productivity of your company.

3. Create Organizational Policies That Boost Employee Productivity

Did you know your organizational policies could be harming your employees’ productivity levels?

For example, let’s say your company doesn’t prohibit employees from using social media during work hours. This isn’t a bad thing, especially if your organizational culture is “fun and hippy.”

However, this policy could be doing more harm than good. Social media is a major distractor for anyone, so if your employees are working while chatting with their friends on social media, their productivity will certainly take a hit.

The gist of this is you need to develop organization policies that boost employee productivity. Banning or minimizing access to things that distract your employees is a good place to start.

You can also allow them to take frequent breaks. Studies show a strong correlation between more breaks and improved productivity.

4. Ensure Office Environment Promotes Productivity

Ever walked into an office that looked so cluttered you wondered how anybody gets anything done? You definitely wouldn’t fancy working there.

Now that you’re an employer, it’s your responsibility to provide an office environment that promotes employee wellness and boosts productivity.

There’s a lot you can do to create an office space your employees will love.

To start with, there should be plenty of natural light. This means windows should be large and exposed to sunlight.

According to neuroscience research, people who work in an office that receives 173 percent more exposure to sunlight enjoy at least 46 more minutes of sleep every night. A well-rested employee will come to work energized and ready to crush the day’s goals.

Ergonomic workstations also play an important role in improving employee productivity. Other office design ideas to implement include creating collaboration spaces and bringing in office plants.

Tweaking office design might not look like a fast and easy way to improve work performance, but it is. All you need to do is hire an office designer to implement these changes.

5. Provide Efficient Work Tools and Equipment

Do you use a legacy computer in your office? Certainly not.

Therefore, you have no reason to let your workers use legacy or outdated tools and systems to do their work. These will only slow them down, no matter how hard they try to get things done faster.

If your company still has old computers and other pieces of office devices that look like they belong in a museum, you ought to invest in more advanced and efficient technology.

While at it, be sure to automate as many functions as you can. With a good enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, automating business functions with an aim to improve productivity is now an easy job. Try it!

6. Train Your Employees

You can provide your employees with the latest tools and equipment and base them in fancy offices, but if they don’t have the right occupation skills, their work performance will suffer.

To solve this problem, train your employees regularly.

A mistake some employers make is assuming that just because they hired qualified employees, they don’t need to invest in additional training programs. Don’t make this mistake.

As technology changes, so do your employees’ roles and responsibilities. They need to continually update their skills and knowledge in order to remain competitive.

Take the initiative and enroll them in occupational training programs.

Improve Work Performance the Easy Way

As an employer, no one cares about the performance of your company more than you do. And to achieve higher organizational productivity, your employees need to step up. With this guide on how to improve work performance, you now have the information you need to implement changes that will yield fast, positive results.

Stay tuned to our blog for business and workplace tips and insights.

Employee Benefits: What You Should Know As An Employer

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |Employee Benefits|Employee Benefits: What You Should Know As An EmployerAs an employer, one of the smartest things you can do is offer employee benefits in the workplace. Some employee benefits are pretty self explanatory and should come as a standard – such as water, tea, and coffee. Your team shouldn’t have to bring in their own basic refreshments.

However, you should offer more than the bare minimum. You want your workplace to be set apart from others, and your benefits to be a little competitive at least. Benefits vary from company to company, but they can easily make your workplace a more pleasant place to work for your team. Below, we’ll go into more detail on employee benefits and what you should know as an employer:

The Types Of Benefits You Can Offer

There are all kinds of benefits you could offer as an employer. This may include:

  • Health insurance (required to be offered by larger companies)
  • Dental insurance
  • Vision care
  • Life insurance
  • Paid vacation leave
  • Personal leave
  • Sick leave
  • Fitness

There are many optional benefits, and many companies offer the above simply to stay competitive. Extra bonuses, such as stock options, can also be a nice addition.

Employee Retention

Many employers are deciding to increase the use of bonuses, perks, and incentives to recruit and retain employees. Making the workplace more comfortable with benefits can ensure employees stay loyal and stick around in the long term. While you need to stick to a budget and you can’t be frivolous with spending, having benefits, bonuses, and perks that keep your employees happy will ensure more productivity, higher quality work, a more pleasant work environment, and more.

Creating A Nice Work Environment

While the benefits can help to contribute to a nicer work environment, they’re not going to do all of the work for you. Having Payroll HR in place will ensure your employees are paid on time and that everything is kept above board, which should be another concern of yours.

Setting Up Flexible Spending Accounts

Many employers set up flexible spending accounts, and these accounts are regulated by the government. The accounts allow you to set aside pretax dollars, and these dollars pay for things like daycare and medical expenses. They will decrease your taxable income as well as give more freedom to your team, so you should take advantage of one if possible.

Caring About Your Employees

Of course, providing benefits gives you the opportunity to actually make things better for your employees. The benefits should come from a genuine place of wanting to help them and caring for their wellbeing. An employer that shows they care will always stand out from the rest, and your team will be far more likely to stay loyal to you. Even offering things like verbal praise and support can go a long way to making the work environment nicer for them and encouraging them to keep going.

Many employee benefits are not compulsory, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer them. Wanting the best for your employees will go a long way. And that includes oral care for your employees with reputable dentists like the Dentist In Grand Blanc.