As a small business owner or if you are employed in Human Resources, management, etc., you may be asking yourself how I can get and retain employees in today’s market. Since the pandemic, staffing shortages have been impacting almost every industry. In this post, I will cover five tips to help you hire employees in today's market.
5 Things Small Businesses Need to Think About To Hire and Retain Employees
Employees have more influence now more than ever. Employers should rethink their recruitment and retention strategies with the struggle to fill roles. People who have worked through the pandemic have come to realize their jobs were and can be done from home.
Make Diversity a Priority
Focusing on diversity is something thing to consider and prioritize. Creating a more diverse workplace will allow you to bring new ideas to the table while also incorporating new cultures into the company’s culture. An article by Ed Nathanson on LinkedIn provides tips on how your small business can take and build a more inclusive and diverse workforce:
- Educate employees at the company on why diversity is essential.
- Don’t do too much too fast
- Enable employees to be their true and authentic selves
- Create programs around what matters to your employees
- Make sure you have a diversity recruiting strategy
- Understand the power of diversity in your talent branding efforts
Allow Employees to Work From Home if Possible
This allows for more flexibility for the employees. Therefore, employers need to reimagine when and where work can be completed. According to this report by Glassdoor, “the share of job searches for remote opportunities grew 360% between June 2019 and June 2021 and continues to rise.”
Many businesses realized they could have many, if not all, of their employees working from home. I know a local business here in Wilkes County, Lowe’s Corporate, moved their employees to wholly remote and have heard nothing but good things from doing so. Work productivity was even better than when they were sitting in a cube at the workplace.
Allowing employees to work from home can be a significant cost-saving for many small businesses. This cuts out the cost of having a building to work in or out of and many other expenses. Employers are now reconsidering workspace and time, realizing that most jobs can be done from home.
Feedback
An excellent way to get feedback about what your employees need or would like to see from your small business is to have discussions with them and see if there is anything you could do differently or if they are thriving in their current environment. Examples of getting feedback:
- having a feedback-positive culture
- feedback surveys
- regular one-on-one meetings
- also providing an option for anonymous feedback.
Competitive Compensation
Competitive compensation and benefits packages are the two main things in keeping employees. You must attract someone to your job posting, so choose targeted job boards and provide as much detail as possible on the posting. You have to think to yourself, if you saw this job online and read about the company, would it make you want to apply? If your answer is no, you should make it more appealing. The top job posting sites for small businesses are Indeed and LinkedIn.
Hire Quality Over Quantity
Employers need to invest time to hire quality workers, improving retention. Make sure you have influential leaders. A common reason most employees leave jobs is due to poor management, according to Get Light House.
Final Thoughts
There, you have it, my top five tips to help your small business to hire and retain employees in today’s job market. These tips are just the tip of the iceberg, but my hope is that it helps you move forward and grow your small business.
