How Can You Keep Your Talent In-House?

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Your most important assets in the business world are not your customers, your market strategies or even your social media followers. They are your employees. Indeed, your team is the core of your business success, from productive performance to customer-focus behavior. It doesn’t matter how clever your business strategy is: If you can’t keep your talent in-house, you can’t succeed for a long time. But ultimately at a time where Millennials, the largest generation in the workplace are described as job-hoppers, it can be difficult to imagine how best to retain your staff. Here are four smart employee-centered strategies that reduce staff turnover to help you build a strong and loyal team.

Enable internal mobility

As your company grows, you naturally need to bring in new talent into your team. However, it can be challenging to keep a strong team when you’ve brought in a new manager. After all, it’s a challenging situation, especially as the subordinate element, the team, is industry-savvy and has a long experience of your products. Understandably, people might feel unvalued if an external professional is trusted with all business decisions. That’s precisely why a lot of companies use Rolepoint to facilitate internal progression. When there’s a chance of promotion, your employees are more likely to stick around.

Create a team spirit

More often than not, people leave companies when they don’t feel involved in the decisions or the everyday processes. Ultimately without a sense of belonging to a team, there’s no reason why people would want to work for a company more than another. Consequently, it’s the responsibility of the manager to make employees feel part of the business. Simple things such as asking for their feedback and including employees in brainstorming sessions can make a great deal of difference. Additionally, creating cross-team projects, where their skills can be assigned to a different team can help people to see the big picture and work together toward a common goal.

Give them amazing perks

Some employees might find satisfaction in building a professional career. But there come a time when you need to be realistic. People don’t work because they enjoy it but because they have to. So there are more likely to want to stay with companies that give them the most exciting perks. As surprising as it might sound, these perks don’t always relate to their end of month pay. For Netflix, it’s one year of paid parental leave, for both mothers and parents. Other companies offer Friday off every week, for example.

What perks come with the job?

Help them maintain a healthy work/life balance

The workplace can be a stressful environment. As a result, employees value businesses that encourage a healthy work/life balance. Options are varied, from introducing gym facilities at work to relieve stress to building a family-friendly environment with on-site childcare services. Although, for a lot of employees, remote and flexible work options remain a favorite as they allow people to work when they are the most productive throughout the day.

In conclusion, the secret to a talented team is not to only to recruit the best candidates, but also to be able to keep them through attractive perks, making them feel valued, and helping them to move their career forward.

What Should You do if You Get Injured at Work

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For most employees, their workplace is a safe environment that is maintained to keep everyone safe. Even if you do have to do a dangerous job, there will be measures in place to keep you as safe as possible. However, for a few people, their workplace is not so safe, and this can lead to accidents and injuries at work. No-one likes to take action against their employer, but if you do get injured, then you need to get the support you need.

What is the First Thing You Should Do?

Having an accident in any situation is scary and a little disorientating. However, when it happens, you need to think clearly and report it to your manager. If you need any medical attention, then in the first instance the first aider should be called and a paramedic if needed. If there are others there with you, ask them to take pictures of the incident on their cell phones including what caused the accident and pictures of your injury.

See Your Doctor

When you first suffer the injury, you will usually be sent to a doctor that has been hired by your employee. They will assess your condition and write a report to the employer. It is important to give the doctor all the information about the accident that caused the injury and any subsequent action taken by a hospital. Your employer should be made fully aware of the injury you suffered and also advised about your current condition. Your employer should give you a form to request benefit help. If they don’t provide one, your doctor or the hospital will also have them.

Seeking Help and Advice

If you think that your accident at work could have been prevented, or if you are unsure of the process, then you need to speak to a specialized lawyer. There is a personal injury attorney in San Diego and other states that can look at your case and decide what course of action needs to be taken. It is important to choose a lawyer that has experience in this type of case because they will be in a better position to advise you.

Gather Your Evidence

From the beginning, it is vital that you start to gather all of the evidence you can about the incident and the correspondence. Keep all your letters, medical reports and emails about your accident or your time off work so that your lawyer can see them. It also helps if your employer denies that something happened, or that an area wasn’t safe. It is also a good idea to keep the receipts of any medical procedures or drugs that you have been prescribed. It will help with finding a settlement figure later.

Many people successfully claim for compensations from their employer for an injury at work, and they have still employed them the same company afterwards. It is important that you know the procedure and who to seek help from at the time.

How To Better Engage Your Employees

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Engaging your employees benefits everyone; your staff is happier, and the business experiences more success. It’s worth your time and energy to find ways that help build a collaborative environment. It’s no longer acceptable to hire people and let them figure it all out on their own.

Guide your employees and make them feel like part of a team. They’ll work hard and be more satisfied overall. Leadership has to step up and take the initiative if you want to experience real change. You’ll be glad to know that there are many practical ways for increasing engagement and creating a culture that encourages involvement and new ideas.

 

Ask for their Feedback

You don’t know what your employees want or what motivates them unless you ask. Be vocal and ask your staff to speak up when they have opinions or grievances to share. Include them in meetings and hold brainstorming sessions to get their input on important initiatives. Have a spot where they can go to share ideas and suggestions on a daily basis. This will not only engage them, but build a deeper connection between each other and different levels of employees.

Innovate Mundane Tasks

Take a look around and dive deep into getting a better idea of what your employees do all day. For example, if you have a call center, try sprucing it up by implementing call center gamification. It’s fun, it’s exciting, and it creates a better work experience. Upgrade your technology, innovate repetitive tasks and always be thinking about how to make your environment more engaging for your staff. This will keep them interested in their work and make them want to be loyal to the company for taking such good care of them.

Collaborate with Departments

Silos make it difficult for anyone to feel excited about their job. It makes you feel like you’re the only one doing any work and you never get the bigger picture of how the business works. Engage your employees by having them work together, no matter which department they’re assigned to. Create a company culture that’s informative of what others do on a daily basis, and that knows how to build relationships with each other, no matter their job or title. Set a goal to bring everyone together once a month or quarter and notice how much better everyone starts working together.

Assign Coaches or Mentors

Hold your employees accountable for the work they do. Push and encourage them to work harder by assigning each person a mentor or coach. These meetings will help make sure that your staff members are getting the attention they deserve and progressing along nicely. Your employees will be focused on getting involved in their work and performing better, since they know someone’s watching.

Conclusion

It’s always a good idea to invest in your employees. Keep them around longer by engaging them on a daily basis. Be open about your initiative and seek additional ideas from staff and leadership members.

Improve Your Employees’ Production Levels by Changing Up the Food and Beverage Options On-Site

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As the owner of a company, you’re always looking to find ways that improve the production level of your employees. Today’s employers know more about what motivates and drives their employees than ever before, which is helping them to enjoy some fabulous results. While there are all kinds of routes you can take, one that you may not have considered is the fuel you’re offering staff.

Pretty much every company, no matter the size, offers on-site snacks, beverages, and even meals for employees to access. Well, here’s the thing, did you know that the options you provide can actually have an impact on their productivity levels since the food and beverages affect their overall health? Let’s take a closer look.

What Fast Foods and Snacks Do to a Person’s Health

In order to get an idea of just how important the right food and drink choices are, one needs to look closer at what fast foods and snacks do to a person’s overall health. As reported in middaydaily.com, those under the age of 30 who consume fast food at least three times a week suffer higher levels of anxiety and stress. This is believed to be brought on by the high levels of fatty acids that exist in fast food.

As far as the healthiest diet goes, the same study went on to show that the Mediterranean diet is indeed one of, if not the healthiest, choices. This is a diet that is rich in fish, seafood, tubers, legumes, and vegetables.

Experts recommend looking at food the same way you look at fuel for an automobile. Sure, the regular fuel will give you what you need to get the job done, but when you go for premium fuel (the healthy food choices), the performance will be that much better. Food has a huge impact on a person’s cognitive performance, which plays into a person’s decision-making skills. If you want your employees to make sound decisions, then better food options may be the answer.

What Can You Do to Help?

So, what can you do to help your employees make food choices that will impact their productivity in a positive way? Well, you can start by encouraging them to eat small meals and/or snacks more frequently. Forcing your employees to go hours and hours without any fuel is going to greatly affect their performance.

Ideally, your employees should get a break every couple of hours where they can have a quick snack and re-fuel, keeping their mind sharp. Not only that, but it helps employees from feeling sluggish, which can then lead to mistakes and errors in the workplace.

Research has shown that foods such as carrots, blueberries, whole grains, avocado, nuts, and dark chocolate all help with productivity levels. It can be beneficial to add these choices to your snack stations or on-site cafeteria/kitchen. As well, be sure that employees always have a supply of fresh water available to them, instead of just coffee.

Providing your employees with energy and brain-boosting foods won’t just benefit them, but the whole company.

Don’t Fire Your Employees, Improve Them!

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Now, when businesses begin to struggle, there are various places that you can look as a business owner to determine where things are going wrong. Perhaps your products just aren’t appealing to the current marketplace. All you need to do to rectify this is work on product design and development. Maybe your advertising isn’t drawing enough attention. You need to reconsider your marketing campaigns and the way that they are put out to consumers. Perhaps you could try out PPC marketing or sponsored social media advertising. But every now and then you may find that problems are a direct result of your staff base just not meeting your expectations and standards. Staff errors or incompetency can bring a business to its knees. After all, your employees are the backbone of your company! They’re the individuals who keep things together, interacting with your customers, sealing sales, and acting as the face of your brand. So what do you do if you find that the root of your company’s problems are the very individuals who are meant to keep things running smoothly? Well, many employers will simply fire their staff in their rage. However, this isn’t always the best answer to their problems. After all, it costs a surprising amount of money to source new staff. You also have to invest a lot of time in the process. Instead, why not look at improving your current employees? Here are a few ways to go about it!

Gather Staff Feedback

First things, first, you need to communicate effectively with your staff. Often, problems arise from deeper sources than sheer laziness. There may be underlying issues in your business practice that you are currently unaware of. Perhaps you need to upgrade your software to allow your staff to do their jobs more effectively. Maybe staff merely need to feel a little more appreciated to put proper effort in. Gathering staff feedback will help you to unearth issues and rectify them.

Offer Additional Education or Training

Your staff can never be too education or overly trained. So offer them the chance to expand their knowledge and improve upon their existing skillset. Put on role-specific training programmes, seminars, or training days. They will quickly become more proficient and confident within their positions. You can also engage in a little self-improvement in this area yourself. Something like msc business management could offer you a more in-depth understanding of how to run things as effectively and productively as possible.

Put on Team Building Activities

Your staff will always be better when they are working together. After all, every individual member will have specific knowledge or skills that work well alone, but put together almost anything could be achieved! Take a look at this creative list of team building activities for you to consider.

No matter what staff issues you face, never act hastily. Firing individuals should be an absolute last resort. Not only does a consistent, permanent staff base offer a sense of consistency in the workplace, but keeping staff content and comfortable in their positions will result in better brand loyalty and higher levels of productivity!