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Keeping Employees

© Bert Markgraf

More and more companies are concerned about their ability to keep good employees. This is especially true in the US market with its low unemployment rate and for small businesses which typically cannot offer the high salaries and opportunities for advancement of their larger competitors. But more and more, it's not the money or the position but the working conditions that count. This fact has companies scrambling to find out what their employees really want and how best to reconcile these factors with their business goals.

A manager has two pre-requisites without which he can't do his job - he needs to get the work done competently and he needs to get it done on time. Then he can work with planning, profitability and performance. As a result, his key objective is to get and keep competent employees who will work long hours.

Employees at this level are looking for work that is rewarding. Money is less of an issue and they are willing to work long hours if the work is challenging and there is a feeling of accomplishment. At the same time, they are looking for flexibility - working into the night is fine on a particular project but not permanently. There has to be time off and there has to be flexibility for family and personal situations.

It's easy to see that there are overlaps in the needs of the companies and employees. The latter will stay with a company and work long hours if the work is structured in an interesting, challenging and rewarding way and if the long hours are intermittent and project oriented. If a company's work is tedious, overly bureaucratic or boring or if the company insists on long hours on a continuous basis, many employees will structure their work to their liking themselves by frequently switching employers and taking time off in between.

While a small business can't offer the challenges of running a multi-billion dollar corporation, it does find it easier to vary and structure work so that it is interesting, challenging and flexible. As a result, a small business may be able to keep valuable employees more easily if the owner makes sure he is meeting his employees' needs.

For more on this topic, have a look at this article at OnVia.com, a Canadian small business site. Have a look around for additional business resources as well.

The copyright of the article Keeping Employees in Small Business is owned by Bert Markgraf. Permission to republish Keeping Employees in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.