Mike Clark's Business Bites: Retention of staff hot topic among employers

Nice toilets with showers could be part of a package to retain your staff. Photo / Unsplash

Are you reliant on your team? What would happen if you lost your best team member?

How easily could your team be enticed away?

I had the privilege of travelling a lot last week. The top questions and discussion among my clients has been around labour - or more accurately the lack of skilled people. Were other businesses finding it hard to find good people? Were other businesses experiencing competitors trying to poach their best workers? How many companies needed to significantly lift wages just to hold people?

The questions have been there for months now but the intensity of people asking across a wide range of industries really struck me last week.

What about you? Staff loyalty is a much-touted topic of management training and leadership development but how easily could a competitor poach your best team members? What impact would that have on your business? If you have lost people have you replaced them quickly or are the remaining team members stretching to cover?

How long can they last going over and above? What is the cost of replacing a team member - the finding, training, equipping and upskilling added to the lost productivity while a new person gets up to speed?

If you are in business I can almost guarantee you have been in a conversation involving the above topics and themes in the past month. January typically has some of the highest resignation numbers - people have a break over Christmas and the prospect of going back to work makes them realise they need a change. One of the key metrics every company should be measuring is retention rates or staff churn.

Do you have an attraction and retention strategy? It is dangerous to rely on paying more - someone is always willing to pay more again. Consider what matters to your team members - often creating the right package is more attractive than higher wages but you do need to pay market rates.

Strategies that have worked well include flexi hours, a day off a fortnight, gym fees covered, cell phone, laptop, vehicle, health insurance, training, time to study and course costs covered if they pass, early knock-off, bonus schemes, clothing allowance, team days, good smoko rooms, nice toilets with showers, in-house gyms, lunches provided, social clubs, personal and professional development plans, staff purchase rates and charity support.

The key here is that many of the above have a high perceived value to an employee. They are not enough in and of themselves. They are most effective when complementing a great company culture. People need to enjoy coming to work, they need to feel appreciated and know their work is meaningful. If you have not yet put time into this, take time this week to consider your attraction and retention strategy.

• Mike Clark is director and lead trainer and facilitator at Think Right business training company.