The challenge here is multiple. First, you need to get good people. Second, you need to motivate them. And thirdly, you need to keep them. The three are linked. If you can establish a working environment where the employee is compensated for performance, is given responsibility for his own work and has the possibility to develop himself, you can attract good people, get them to do the work and keep them.
The prerequisite is to know your own business. To establish measurable performance goals you must know what measurable characteristics are valuable for your business. This ties in with marketing through the characteristics you have set to differentiate yourself from competitors. If one of your key selling propositions is on-time delivery, then that's a suitable measure for employee performance and compensation. Total sales or company profit, on the other hand, are not good measures on their own because they don't encourage long-term thinking or increase customer satisfaction.
Contrary to the expectations of many business owners, today's employees are no longer grateful and happy just to have a job and there are in fact fewer and fewer jobs where the "just a job" attitude is enough. Instead, employees must feel that they are essential to the success of the enterprise, that they will be rewarded for success and that they are doing something worthwhile overall while acquiring useful skills and knowledge.
For more hints on how to motivate today's worker try this Business Builder's page for a lot of good ideas.
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